Trump executive order directs CDC to 'realign' childhood vaccine schedule with developed peers

President Trump issued an executive order Friday directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its vaccine advisory committee to update the U.S. childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule in line with the Department of Health and Human Services' January scientific assessment of "best practices from peer, developed countries."

The assessment found the U.S. schedule is far more bloated than those of peers, "including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations," and relied on mandates far more than peers, most of whom "maintain high childhood vaccination rates through public trust and education," the order says.

"My Administration is committed to ensuring that Americans are receiving the best scientifically supported medical advice in the world" and to "protecting religious liberty and parental authority," Trump wrote, officially acknowledging the assessment "as a guiding resource for the Federal Government."

After reviewing the data, the CDC will, "to the extent permitted by law, take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule," the order says. 

Its Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices "should consider ways to provide maximum flexibility to parents and doctors through recommendations for timing and sequencing of the administration of routine immunizations."

Departments and agencies shall "align with the schedule" as recommended and adopted, "including fulfilling all legal obligations with respect to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under the law," the order says.

This includes covering all recommended and adopted immunizations "without cost sharing by private insurance and covered by Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Vaccines for Children Program."

The assessment recommended prioritizing 11 routine childhood vaccines, still more than the 7 vaccines recommended in 1980 but a far cry from the morbidly obese 2024 schedule, with "at least 84 vaccine doses in at least 57 shots for 17 diseases, plus the RSV monoclonal antibody immunization for a total of 18 diseases."

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, nominated by President Biden and often used in "forum shopping" by liberal activists against the Trump administration, blocked the schedule overhaul in March, placed all new ACIP members on hold and stayed all its votes since last June.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rewriting ACIP's membership rules in light of Murphy's ruling.