Trump puts vaccines on front burner ahead of crucial midterms for GOP

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Trump executive order calls for fewer childhood vaccines

Trump executive order calls for fewer childhood vaccines

The Trump administration has thrust vaccine policy back into the headlines just three months before the midterm elections, potentially complicating matters for vulnerable Republicans who are hoping to keep control of Congress.  

President Trump on Monday doubled down on his attempt to overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule with an executive order aimed at reducing the number of recommended vaccines for the youngest children and breaking the measles, mumps and rubella shot into separate vaccines. 

The president’s own pollsters have warned vaccine changes are unpopular and politically risky, but Trump has long shown a personal interest in the issue.  

His efforts have been significantly aided by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who founded and led an antivaccine advocacy group prior to leading the nation’s federal health department. 

“We’re reducing them,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Monday. “It’s not only that you’re doing fewer vaccines, or jabs, as they say, but you’re doing them in a series of visits to the doctor.” 

Trump’s move also undercuts the administration’s short-lived reset of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which the White House sought to show in an attempt to tamp down on Kennedy’s vaccine policies ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Instead of vaccines, the administration had focused on putting more mainstream officials in key posts, talking up lower health costs and launching popular food policy reforms — including one heralded by Kennedy just hours before........

© The Hill