Trump signs order to reshape childhood vaccine schedule, split MMR shots

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that sought to reshape childhood vaccine recommendations, including splitting the measles, mumps and rubella shot into three separate visits. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order would call for “more vaccine flexibility and research” and fewer childhood vaccinations.

The directive aimed to cut the number of diseases children are advised to be vaccinated against from 18 to 11, and it reaffirmed an overhaul of the schedule that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had announced earlier in 2026. It put the federal vaccine schedule back at the center of a fight over autism, pediatric guidance and the authority of public health agencies.

The move had been building for days inside the administration. On Aug. 6, Trump officials were considering an order on autism and vaccines, and White House aides were drafting language focused on the childhood vaccine schedule. By Aug. 7, the plan was being described as possible for release the following week, even as Republican pollsters warned the issue could carry political risk before November’s midterm elections.

The order also came after a federal judge halted Kennedy’s sweeping vaccine overhaul, leaving the White House to try again with a new directive. It was the third time in less than a year that Trump issued an executive order on the issue, underscoring how often the fight over vaccines and autism has returned to the center of his presidency.

Trump tied the move to his long-running public focus on autism. He said that while “we do not know” exactly what causes autism, it is “essential” to have the “best vaccine recommendations in the entire world.” By splitting the MMR shot into three separate injections at separate medical visits, the order pushed one of the most familiar parts of the childhood schedule into a more fragmented format.