This time last year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was signaling his plan to dismantle America’s mechanisms around vaccine safety and access. While there were still traces of hope that Congress would provide actual oversight over Kennedy, these efforts have so far turned out to be more performative than authoritative. Congress needs to step up and use its constitutional authority to provide adequate oversight before Trump and Kennedy push the U.S. further into a wholly preventable public health crisis.
Luckily, the courts have paused the worst of Kennedy’s actions. The courts halted a revamped childhood vaccine schedule Kennedy pushed through in the shadows as well as his attempt to stack a crucial advisory panel with vaccine skeptics. Even as they are repeatedly told their actions are illegal, Kennedy and Trump continue to push forward their conspiracy theories and anti-vax agenda.
Despite data showing a once unthinkable measles outbreak continues to expand, Trump, with Kennedy’s direct support, issued a new executive order (EO) earlier this month. The EO creates confusion for families, providers, and communities by changing how and for whom certain vaccines are recommended. More than anything, this new action shows how little the men leading public health in this country actually know about these topics. With this anti-science EO, Trump and Kennedy are causing more harm than good by providing parents with a message that diverges from what pediatricians are saying.
At the press conference announcing the new executive order, the president reiterated one of his favorite fabrications: the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine is safer when split into three separate shots. Here’s the thing, though — U.S. pharmaceutical companies don’t manufacture, and there is no FDA approval for three separate vaccines. It is functionally impossible to separate these vaccines right now. So why would the president throw this idea out? Besides ignorance, it is a tactic to create confusion for parents and complicate adherence to the vaccine schedule. By unnecessarily separating these vaccines, people will be less likely to complete all the steps.
One rationale for the new executive order was that they “only” moved some of the vaccines to the shared clinical decision-making designation, not removing vaccine recommendations completely. The president and secretary justify this by claiming this allows providers and parents to have a conversation about the vaccines, not to deter them. This shows, again, a lack of understanding of these systems.
The vaccine schedule does not demand — or even recommend — a child be given a vaccine without a discussion with the parents. Shared clinical decision-making is intended for care decisions where the medical evidence is not clear, and there are multiple treatment options. Vaccines, especially Kennedy’s claim that they are tied to autism, have decades of research and evidence. Autonomy in health care is necessary, and the recommended vaccine schedule had provided autonomy well before Kennedy started changing it.
These misinformed decisions are not just symbolic; they are already changing individual vaccination decisions throughout the U.S. Data for the 2025-2026 school year shows a new record high of vaccine exemptions for school-aged children. The majority of counties in the US do not achieve herd immunity in kindergarten classrooms. Meaning the community level of immunity to minimize the spread of an infectious disease has not been reached, leaving those who are unable to be vaccinated for a variety of reasons unprotected. Trump and Kennedy’s anti-vax agenda creates nothing but confusion and is tied to this dangerous collapse in vaccination rates.
Kennedy and Trump’s policies are being evaluated currently by the committee that monitors the US’s measles eradication status by reviewing the CDC’s annual report on measles. Although a decision will not be made until November, the US is in the midst of the worst outbreak of measles in decades and is unlikely to retain the status of measles elimination. The loss of this status may sound like an administrative designation, but it indicates a larger problem of potential societal and economic harms. For example, one case could have a societal cost (e.g., loss of productivity, cost of care) of $47,000, not to mention the potential confusion for places such as childcare centers when an outbreak occurs. We have solutions to prevent these harms, but Kennedy is choosing not to use them.
To end last week, Kennedy published a Request for Information (RFI) to gather feedback about the categories used on the childhood vaccine schedule. This move appears to exclude the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the scientific experts of the CDC by accepting the changes from the executive order as finalized. In addition, by using an RFI, as opposed to a proposed rule, HHS is not required to respond to individual responses or concerns submitted. So this is merely a mirage of gathering public feedback.
The biggest fault of vaccines is that they are a victim of their own success. Many people do not fear polio, measles, or other vaccine-eradicated diseases because they have not seen the harm firsthand. Most people do not know someone who spent their life in an iron lung after contracting polio, the long-term brain damage caused by measles, or a child with advanced liver damage due to hepatitis B.
However, using herd immunity to protect the community against infectious disease is a long-held American idea that dates back to George Washington’s command of the Continental Army. Giving up on it now is not only deeply un-American, but it is also an abdication of duty by the president and HHS secretary to promote the general welfare of this country. Congress needs to be a check on the executive branch by holding oversight hearings to better understand how these vaccine decisions are being made and pass the Family Vaccine Protection Act. Americans deserve to be provided with sound, evidence-based health recommendations from their government.
