Overview
- President Trump signed the executive order on Monday directing HHS and other agencies to narrow the list of vaccines routinely recommended for children and to develop plans to offer measles, mumps and rubella as separate shots.
- Several states and governors, including New York, California, Pennsylvania and Maine, have already said they will not change their school immunization requirements in response to the federal guidance.
- Major medical groups and infectious-disease experts condemned the order as unsupported by evidence and warned that repeated claims linking vaccines to autism are disproven by decades of research.
- Implementing the unbundled MMR would require new clinical trials, separate FDA approvals and new manufacturing capacity because no single measles, mumps or rubella vaccines are currently licensed in the United States.
- Public-health officials say the timing is risky given this year’s large measles surge, and they warn that more clinic visits and added costs from separated shots could lower vaccine completion and leave children at higher risk of serious outbreaks.