Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.

President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order on childhood vaccines, alarming multiple health experts and medical organizations due to the changes having no scientific basis.

The order, titled the “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” was signed by Trump in the Oval Office on Monday. It calls for revising vaccine recommendations for children, most notably by separating multiple combined vaccines, including for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR).

The MMR vaccine “should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available,” the order recommends. In addition to the MMR vaccine, the order also calls for “all childhood immunizations [to] be administered at separate medical visits.”

Trump claims in his order that changes are being made “based on consultation with my advisors and review of available scientific evidence.” However, the order does not explain what that evidence is, and the current scientific understanding of vaccines suggests that combining some with others is not only safe, but highly beneficial, as it results in fewer visits to the doctor’s office for vaccines and lessens the likelihood of some vaccine doses slipping through the cracks.

Separating the MMR vaccine, for example, would result in many more needless visits to the doctor. Currently, the MMR regimen requires two doses of the combined shot to be highly effective. Separating the three vaccines within the shot would therefore require six trips to the doctor, rather than the normal two (though the executive order cuts that number in half, without explaining how or why).

US Measles Cases in 2026 Have Already Surpassed Last Year’s Total

In comments to reporters at the signing ceremony for the executive order, Trump said he was motivated in part by concerns about vaccines supposedly being connected to autism, despite dozens of studies across decades of research finding no causal link between the two.

“I came [into office] and I said, ‘I want to find what’s going on with autism,'” Trump said. “It’s many, many times what it used to be, years ago, and it gets progressively worse as we add more and more vaccines.”

Trump’s claim that autism gets “progressively worse” as more vaccines are administered to a person has no scientific backing.

"Vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child's body" — Trump from the Oval Office is pushing debunked claims about vaccines and autism being linked— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-10T19:05:34.938Z

"Vats of vaccine are currently pumped........

© Truthout