On August 10, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at making major changes to federal vaccine policy. Among several other actions, this order would make major revisions to the childhood vaccination schedule, direct care providers to administer monovalent vaccines as soon as they are available (starting with splitting up the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine – an action that could take up to a decade), and pressure states to change laws surrounding religious exemptions to school entry requirements. This E.O. directs Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct his recently reinstated Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines to provide recommendations to President Trump on the following items: 1) offer options to administer vaccines as individual products; 2) assess ideal timing and sequencing for core vaccines; 3) develop additional or alternative adjuvants to aluminum; 4) ensure continuous evaluation of the risk and benefit profiles of all childhood vaccines; and 5) improve vaccine safety monitoring. Additionally, this E.O. directs the U.S. Attorney General to “take appropriate measures” to challenge state laws they see as conflicting with parental authority. The order similarly directs the Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services to take actions to ensure all “contractors and grantees, including states and localities,” allow religious and medical vaccine exemptions. Currently, all but four states – California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York – allow for religious exemptions for school entry requirements. All states allow medical exemptions. Heidi Overton, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White House, is quoted as saying that the administration will be working directly with states to ensure “parents get the benefit from state laws changing.”
This executive order comes alongside other shifts in the federal vaccine policy landscape that, when taken together, could spell trouble for children’s health. On August 12, HHS posted a solicitation of nominations for membership on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) in the federal register. The notice mentions that new membership for the committee “will be balanced and includes a selection of public members who are engaged in gold standard science, vaccine safety or efficacy research, or who are physicians, scientists, members of parent organizations concerned with immunizations, representatives of state or local health agencies or public health organizations.” NVAC received a new charter on July 7, where officials added language shifting the focus of the committee toward looking at “non-immunization strategies” to promote health. These changes come in the months after a federal court required the CDC and Secretary Kennedy to rollback major changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and other actions of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Throughout the nation’s history, states have held the authority to set vaccine policy. It is part of powers granted to states under public health laws, particularly for communicable diseases. Now, as it has been since the smallpox vaccine1 to the more recent COVID vaccine, the federal government has not had authority to override state vaccine policy. While federal scientific bodies make recommendations, states have set laws related things such as requirements for schools and exemptions thereof. This has been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, who, in 1922, upheld states’ powers to require childhood immunizations as a condition to attend daycare or school.
While federal vaccine policy has changed drastically since President Trump’s inauguration, state policy has shifted at a far slower rate. An analysis by the New York Times found that of the over 200 bills and other proposals, all intended to weaken vaccine access or public trust in vaccines, introduced across 34 states, only nine made it to their Governor’s desk for signature. No state eliminated core vaccine requirements, and the nine enacted bills were largely aimed at eroding public trust in vaccines. These bills were largely pushed by the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, a group of nonprofit organizations wanting to end all “medical mandates” – many of which pertain to vaccines and school entry requirements. While most of these bills failed, the group and other anti-vaccine proponents intend to bring new bills next legislative session.
The timing of these federal changes could not be worse. The United States is in one of the worst measles outbreaks in decades, putting the US’ “elimination status” in serious jeopardy. (U.S. health officials asked the panel, convened by the Pan American Health Organization, to delay the review of U.S. measles elimination status, originally scheduled in April, until November.) During that period of time, measles cases continue to spike in the U.S. Halfway through 2026, there are more measles cases than the entirety of 2025, which was considered the worst year for measles in over 30 years. Sowing distrust in the trivalent MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine will cause greater public skepticism in the vaccine and lower vaccination rates. In 2025, ACIP voted to remove their recommendation of the quadrivalent MMRV vaccine – a shot that combines MMR and varicella in one dose – for children less than four years old, based on little safety data. The committee further voted to exclude its coverage from the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, which funds free vaccinations to nearly half of US children. A newly published study in JAMA Network Open found that the children accessing the MMRV vaccine were more likely to be in primarily low-income families, many of which are eligible for Medicaid and therefore eligible for free vaccines through VFC. The August 10th E.O. further directs the splitting of the MMR vaccine into three doses – an action that will create major access issues and possibly an unimmunized, and therefore unprotected, population.
Not only is the timing bad from a health perspective, it is also extremely unpopular with voters. A KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust found that most adults were skeptical about vaccine myths – including that the MMR vaccine causes autism in children and that getting the measles vaccine is more dangerous than contracting measles. In late 2025, GOP pollsters Fabrizio Ward looked at 1,000 voters in 35 of the most competitive Congressional districts and found that there was strong bipartisan support for routine childhood vaccinations. Additionally, the group found that “skepticism toward vaccine requirements is politically risky for both parties,” and politicians from either party who advocate for the removal of long-standing vaccine recommendations “would negatively impact their party’s performance.” As the country heads toward a tumultuous midterm election, the nation’s children are already feeling the effect of shifts in federal vaccine policy. With many students heading back to school this month, school entry requirements will be in the forefront of many parents’ minds, swirling with misinformation and debunked claims that vaccines cause more harm than good. Vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are just that and families deserve policy based on science.
- In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court found that states have constitutionally-granted “police power” to enact reasonable public health measures, include compulsory vaccinations (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)). ↩︎