Whopper of the Week: The Executive Order on Vaccines is Not Gold Standard Science

Whopper of the Week: 

The Executive Order on Vaccines Is Not Gold Standard Science

SUMMARY

This week the White House announced an Executive Order called “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” which commands federal agencies to reduce the recommended number of childhood vaccines, split the combination measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine into separate shots, and develop alternatives to aluminum adjuvants. At the signing, Secretary Kennedy brazenly said that “when it comes to the health of our children, the government has an obligation to follow the evidence wherever it leads, tell the American people the truth, and give parents the information they need to make informed decisions for their families.” It is a whopper to imply the Executive Order is based in scientific evidence; it does not even try to prove the current childhood immunization schedule is unsafe or that its proposed changes would improve children's health. 

Kennedy and Trump are both trying to revive an old lie that: autism is a disease caused by an “environmental toxin” which could be eliminated if the the causal factor were known. In reality, autism is a complex multifactorial neuro-developmental condition, which, as Defend Public Health has written many times before, is not caused by vaccines or aluminum or acetaminophen or immune overload.
 

WHY IS THIS A WHOPPER?

Kennedy has been promoting disinformation about vaccines since 2005. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views are why he came to the attention of President Trump in 2017, was appointed Secretary of Health in 2026 and told to “go wild on health”. Last September, President Trump posted his personal vaccine views on Truth Social and they are eerily similar in tone and content to his April and August 2026 Executive Orders on childhood vaccines. Over the decades, neither politician has changed their anti-vaccines beliefs despite the overwhelming evidence on the efficacy and safety of vaccines. 

Andrew Racine, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics stresses that "Dozens of studies involving millions of people show there is no link between vaccines and autism and yet federal leaders continue to promote this outdated, disproven idea to scare families." The most recent cohort study of 2.5 million American children supports the consensus conclusion that children who receive the MMR vaccination before 24 months age are not at higher risk of developing autism. 

The Executive Order and its Fact Sheet, on the other hand, provide no evidence that combination vaccines like MMR are unsafe or that a different schedule is more effective at protecting children. Breaking the combined MMR vaccine into separate individual shots for measles, mumps, and rubella will change the current two-shot approach for all three diseases at once into six shots total (two for each separate disease), increasing the cost and inconvenience for parents and care givers. Senator Bill Cassidy objected on social media, “Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.”

The Executive Order also provides no evidence that children will be healthier if the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) downgrades vaccine recommendations against the flu, COVID-19, Meningitis, hepatitis A and B, or respiratory syncytial virus. The Executive Order relies heavily on a January 2026 on a controversial paper written by two Kennedy allies comparing the U.S. immunization schedule to a small group of peer countries. The CDC's own scientific experts contradicted its conclusion that the US recommended too many vaccines. The paper is not a systematic review of scientific studies, and does not talk about the risk-benefits of immunization for American children. It does not meet the quality standards the US medical and scientific communities expect for major immunization policy changes. 
 

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

This week’s Executive Order feels like “Groundhog’s Day.” The order tried to revive the childhood immunization schedule changes unilaterally issued by the CDC’s acting director in January. Because the government did not follow proper procedures, a federal judge temporarily blocked their implementation. Trump then unsuccessfully tried to downsize the childhood vaccine schedule by Executive Order in April and again in August. But according to Professor Dorit Reiss, at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco, without formal review by the Advisory Council on Immunization Practices, all these attempts to change the childhood immunization schedule are likely unlawful.

Secretary Kennedy also keeps trying – and failing – to find proof of “vaccine injuries” despite funding a variety of research projects on vaccines and autism. There is no science, let alone "Gold Standard Science" behind Trump's Executive Order. Dr. Ronald Nahass, President of the Infectious Disease Society of America objected, saying, “The American people deserve childhood vaccine recommendations that are made by qualified experts, through an established, transparent process and based on the best available scientific evidence. Today’s executive order undermines all three of these fundamental standards.”  

The Executive Order encourages states to change their school immunization requirements. Fortunately, an executive order alone cannot rewrite state laws. Before making any changes, state governments should carefully consider the scientific evidence and whether altering immunization requirements would improve or undermine children’s health. Most states understand that there is nothing “golden” about preventable outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Contributions by: Benedicte Callan, Ph.D.