In the latest move toward promoting conspiracy theories and anti-vaxxer pseudoscience over legitimate research, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans.
The signing ceremony was attended by members of his administration and other guests, including anti-vax activist and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., White House policy advisor and Project 2025 architect Stephen Miller, and health economist and controversial National Institutes of Health Director and acting Centers for Disease Control Director Jay Bhattacharya, who attended medical school but never practiced medicine.
Under Trump's executive order, only six of the 17 vaccines currently recommended for all U.S. children would continue to have full recommendations: measles, mumps, rubella (MMR); diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP); polio, Hib; pneumococcal disease; HPV; and varicella.
Trump gave a number of wildly inaccurate justifications for the childhood vaccine schedule changes while disparaging the vaccines that will still be recommended.
At one point, Trump claimed:
"I saw this early on, and I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination thing, looks like the size of a bottle of soda, poured into a little child’s body."
"And bad things happen in many cases, too many cases. This is an explosion, this is an epidemic."
You can see Trump's comment here:
CNN's Erin Burnett examined Trump's claim that he had seen "proof" of a vaccine for children that is "the size of a bottle of soda."
The POTUS's claim didn’t hold water.
You can see Trump's misinformation debunked here:
As Burnett demonstrated, the MMR vaccine dose has a volume of 0.5 mL while a standard soda bottle contains 500 mL (16.9 fl oz) of liquid.
Even adding up all childhood vaccine doses doesn't equal the volume of a standard soda bottle. A child would need to get approximately 1,000 vaccinations in the same day to receive a soda bottle's worth of liquid.
Trump continued to spout similar lies throughout the event.
The POTUS also pushed the popular conspiracy theory that childhood vaccinations created an autism epidemic that doesn't exist. Conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr., who made millions off his misinformation before joining the Trump administration, confuse increased research, understanding, and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with increased occurrence.
The disorder wasn't identified and documented as a unique condition until 1911. But ASD, like most neurodivergent congenital conditions, has always existed.
Trump stated:
"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today. In those times, people were much healthier and of course the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. There's a reason for such epidemic rates of autism."
No one in the Oval Office shared the childhood death and permanent impairment rates from the illnesses—like lockjaw, polio, whooping cough, mumps, and measles—that the unvaccinated children experienced decades ago.
Trump also said the MMR vaccine is "quite lethal."
When asked to back his claim of lethality, Trump responded:
"What I’ve heard is that there are some people who say it is that way."
Trump also seemingly nodded off numerous times.
Aaron Rupar offered a 7-minute supercut of the signing ceremony's lowlights on X and YouTube:
Many, including physicians and pharmacists, spoke out on social media about the Trump administration's latest medical misinformation event.
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Executive orders are meant as guidance to federal agencies and should have no legal effect on the public. However the Trump administration has routinely used them to circumvent Congress, laws, and the United States Constitution.
What fallout will occur from this latest EO remains to be seen.
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