This week President Donald Trump attempted to upend how vaccines are administered to children in the U.S., signing an executive order that lowers the recommended number of childhood vaccinations and calls for the separation of the measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR, vaccine into individual shots. The reason, he alleged without evidence (and contrary to widely accepted science), was that the combined vaccination could be “quite lethal.” Trump also said the order was intended to put the United States in line with its peers, claiming that the U.S. recommends more vaccinations than most other countries.

The American Academy of Pediatrics swiftly denounced Trump’s claims, saying the announcement’s only purpose was to “sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines.” The federal government’s past attempts to alter the childhood-vaccination schedule have been far from successful with a federal judge blocking one such change back in March following a legal challenge. This latest effort may fail as well. To better understand the implications of Trump’s proposed changes, I spoke with epidemiologist Dr. Céline Gounder, a clinical associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and CBS News medical correspondent.

Is there any scientific evidence to support the recommendations that Trump is calling for?There is not. Let’s take this from a couple different angles. So Merck stopped making the stand-alone measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines in 2009. There is no licensed version in this country. No company has said it’s building one and the order would only take effect once you actually have those products. Japan actually did split its shot in the 1990s and mumps vaccination there fell to about a third of kids and they saw hundreds of kids who developed hearing loss as a result. So there’s a very real impact from splitting up and having vaccination levels drop. This was also observed in Oregon where they studied the spacing of vaccinations among some 100,000 kids and families. And, similarly, they found that parents had to make — obviously — more trips to the doctor to get their kids vaccinated and that completion of the schedule also dropped as a result.

Now, one of the arguments people have or concerns they have is some sort of immune overload from getting too many vaccines at once. And, to put that into perspective, a century ago, a child got one vaccine — the smallpox vaccine — which carried about 200 viral proteins. The entire vaccination schedule today carries fewer viral proteins than that, than just the one smallpox vaccine, and it’s because they’re much more pure and targeted. In addition, young children will typically get, let’s say, four to six fevers a year from just ordinary infections. Each one of those is a bigger challenge to the immune system than the several shots you might get during a well baby visit.

As you alluded to, the executive order hinges on the potential creation of individual shots for the measles, mumps, and rubella — something that doesn’t currently exist in the United States. How far off are we from those vaccines being produced?Well, why would the manufacturers do that? Contrary to popular belief, vaccines are not highly profitable. It costs millions if not a billion dollars to bring something like this to market. You would need to have enough of the virus of concern circulating in the community to be able to even........

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