President Donald Trump directed federal agencies on Friday to adopt the findings of a January study from the Department of Health and Human Services that recommends scaling back the number of routine childhood vaccinations, endorsing a long-standing goal of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The executive order, reported by the Associated Press, instructs agencies to align their policies behind the HHS report, which argues that the United States currently recommends more shots for children than many other developed countries.
The HHS study recommends that all children be vaccinated against 11 diseases. Vaccines for several other conditions — influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, certain types of meningitis, and RSV — would be recommended only for children at elevated risk or when a doctor and family decide together, a model the report calls “shared decision-making.”
The administration previously moved to narrow the childhood vaccine schedule along similar lines, but that effort was blocked by a federal judge in Massachusetts. The administration is appealing that ruling. Trump’s Friday executive order does not directly overturn the court’s hold, but it signals the White House’s continued commitment to reshaping federal immunization policy.
Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who has led HHS since the start of the administration, has repeatedly called for an overhaul of the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule. The January report represents the most concrete translation of that position into formal government analysis, and Friday’s executive order gives it the president’s backing as the official administration position.