On August 10, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing public trust in childhood vaccine guidelines. The order, “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” recommends fewer vaccines and spreading vaccinations across multiple visits, including splitting the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine into separate products.
The order also promotes the revised childhood immunization schedule unveiled by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January and later blocked by a federal court in March. These “gold standard” recommendations are not based on new evidence or research, but a scientific assessment (without peer review) that compares the U.S. childhood schedule to other countries. Unable to implement the revised schedule at a federal level, the executive order calls on states to adopt the schedule and directs the Attorney General to challenge state laws that conflict with parental authority regarding vaccines.
These recent actions by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are only the latest to undermine evidence-based vaccine policy and weaken public trust. After dismissing and excluding relevant medical expertise from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), creating unnecessary barriers to COVID-19 vaccination, and terminating research for new vaccine technologies, he continues to bypass established scientific review processes, increase confusion for clinicians and families, and threaten decades of progress in preventing vaccine-preventable disease.
In the midst of the worst measles outbreak in decades, undermining public trust in the MMR vaccine is unacceptable. And promoting a schedule that downgrades recommendations for previously routine vaccines such as RSV (the leading cause of infant hospitalization in the U.S.) and rotavirus (which caused more than 50,000 childhood hospitalizations annually before routine vaccination) will harm children. This executive order ignores the experiences of frontline family physicians who are dedicated to preventing harm and suffering caused by preventable diseases.
The American Academy of Family Physicians and the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians strongly support universal access to immunizations and oppose any effort to politicize or weaken trusted public health infrastructure.
Take action now. Urge your members of Congress to defend science-based vaccine policy and reject actions that threaten public health.