President Trump earlier this week issued an executive order that would drastically change the childhood immunization schedule—limiting recommendations, spacing out shots, and splitting the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine into single-disease injections.
Trump said the move would provide American children with “gold-standard” protection and align the United States more closely with other developed countries that recommend fewer shots.
“Effective immediately, my administration is recognizing gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases, along with the MMR, which hopefully will be split up,” Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the order on Aug. 10.
The executive order stipulates that children should get vaccinated for 11 diseases, down from the 18 immunizations that were recommended before Trump returned to office.
The details of this order mirrors HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s moves to overhaul the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s schedule last year (The Cancer Letter, Oct. 10, 2025).
For the vaccines that are no longer recommended by the CDC, including shots for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and Covid-19, the executive order directs families to talk to their doctors and make a “shared clinical decision” about whether their children should receive them.
ACIP voted in December to rescind its recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis B virus vaccine dose within 24 hours of birth (The Cancer Letter, May 1, 2026).
The decision will likely lead to hundreds of additional infections among children, according to studies published earlier this year in JAMA Pediatrics.
The rate of infants receiving a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine was already down 1.8%: 81.1% of babies born in 2019–2020 received the birth dose, while only 79.3% of babies born in 2021–2022 did (The Cancer Letter, April 3, 2026). This data was collected before fervent debate over vaccines, including the vaccine for hepatitis B, that has taken place in the last year.
Transfusion transmitted HBV in infants and children who rely on blood products is an overlooked area of risk, and removing the birth dose for infants born to birthing parents who are hepatitis B surface antigen–negative “creates a new cohort of vaccine-naive infants during a period when transfusion exposure may occur,” according to one of the studies. “In practical terms, a universal birth-dose policy has become an option rather than a recommendation. This could lead to deferral or avoidance, therefore increasing risk for HBV transmission in pediatric patients.”
Along with additional infections, the study predicts there will be more cases of liver cancer, death, and millions in added healthcare costs.
The executive order has drawn sharp criticism from the medical community, including the World Health Organization, which defended current immunization timelines as the product of decades of rigorous, evidence-based science.
A Survivor Views survey released earlier this year by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network found that vaccine-related confusion is already affecting patient decision-making, with nearly 1 in 6 cancer patients and survivors reporting that they delayed or skipped a recommended vaccine due to confusion.
In an Aug. 10 statement, Lisa Lacasse, president of the ACS CAN, said this order could undermine cancer progress and create confusion.
Said Lacasse:
Preserving strong childhood immunization systems is essential to protecting public health and ensuring that progress against cancer is not undermined. We are concerned that the executive order on vaccines will create further confusion for parents wanting to protect their children from vaccine-preventable diseases, including those that cause cancer.
Children today can be protected against more diseases with the same or fewer injections than in the past, including the HPV and HepB vaccines, which prevent several types of cancers later in life. Changes to the childhood vaccine recommendations could have a sweeping impact on American public health generally and on the health of patients with cancer and their families. Any changes to vaccine schedules must, therefore, be well-considered, evidence-based and made by qualified experts in the field.
ACS CAN supports fact-based vaccine policies that reduce the cancer burden and protect those affected by cancer through increased access and uptake of vaccines that prevent viruses that lead to cancer, like the HPV vaccine, treat cancer by boosting the immune system, and protect cancer patients and their families by maximizing community immunity.
The vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus remains on the recommended list of vaccines for children.
