Trump takes aim at childhood vaccines

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is trying to revise the childhood vaccine schedule. What’s happening? On Monday, Trump signed an executive order recommending fewer childhood vaccines, directing new vaccine research, and attempting to advance “parental choice” on vaccines. The new guidance substantially cuts the number of shots recommended for all children, from vaccines for 18 diseases to just 11. Vaccines for rotavirus, meningococcal disease, the flu, and Covid-19 are all among those the order no longer recommends for all children. What does that mean for vaccine access in the US? For now, not too much. The order only issues recommendations, and as the Washington Post points out, many states have already elected to stop relying on federal vaccine recommendations. It’s certain to increase confusion over vaccine safety, though, and could throw up new administrative barriers for parents. Why does Trump care? Trump has long amplified baseless conspiracy theories linking childhood vaccines to autism; on Monday, he claimed that childhood vaccine doses are “the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body.” (They are not.) Parts of the order directly reflect Trump’s personal hobbyhorses around vaccines, such as a recommendation to break up the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine into three separate shots; as the Post points out, those kinds of individual shots aren’t even commercially available right now. What’s the big picture? Monday’s EO doesn’t make any earthshattering changes, but it’s concerning to see vaccine policy — or at least policy recommendations — made from the Oval Office. And the order will have another impact: Trump’s attempts to dictate vaccine policy to states, combined with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s year and a half plus of meddling, will only serve to further demolish America’s splintered public health consensus. And with that, it’s time to log off… Have you heard about the fitness competition Hyrox, possibly against your will? Have you not heard about Hyrox? Are you perhaps thinking of the Oreo-adjacent cookie Hydrox instead? Whichever category you fall into, I recommend my colleague Alex Abad-Santos’s latest piece explaining what exactly is going on over there. You can read it with a gift link here. Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!