President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reduce the number of shots on the childhood vaccine schedule, The Wall Street Journal reported July 27.
President Trump reportedly steers nearly every conversation with his health secretary back to childhood vaccines and their alleged tie to autism, and hopes to see autism rates fall as shots are pared back, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. Decades of research have found no link between routine childhood vaccines and autism, including a 2019 study of more than 600,000 children in Denmark and a 2021 review of 138 studies published by The Cochrane Collaboration.
The pressure came to a head at a May lunch at President Trump’s golf course in northern Virginia, where the president told Mr. Kennedy he “had the yips” on the issue, according to the report. White House political advisers had earlier asked Mr. Kennedy to tone down his vaccine messaging ahead of the midterms — advice the president has apparently overridden.
At the end of May, President Trump signed an executive order directing HHS to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines, saying the U.S. was out of step with other nations. He has also pressed to break up the combined measles, mumps and rubella shot into separate doses, a change scientists say has no clinical justification and could lead to missed vaccinations.
The push builds on a scheduled conflict already in the courts. Mr. Kennedy in January proposed narrowing routine childhood recommendations to vaccines against 11 diseases, down from 17. U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy blocked the plan in March, ruling the administration appeared to have bypassed the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and that many of Mr. Kennedy’s appointees to that panel were unlawfully seated. The government is appealing.
A White House spokesperson told the Journal the administration is “committed to leaving no stone unturned” on autism through “gold standard science,” and an HHS spokesperson said Mr. Kennedy and President Trump are “aligned” in confronting childhood chronic disease.
Healthcare experts believe further revisions would ripple into pediatric immunization workflows and shot availability and add to the counseling burden on physicians navigating conflicting federal, state and specialty-society guidance.
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