President Donald Trump said Friday that he would be “demanding” drug companies further split up vaccines into five doses given in six-month intervals, and claimed that doing so would reduce autism rates.
It was not immediately clear which immunizations he was seeking to break up.
“The vaccine size will be much, much less,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a massive reduction in autism. And that’s a big deal, a very big deal. We’re going to be recommending that and actually demanding it.”
Trump has long questioned whether childhood vaccines can cause autism, despite decades of research finding no link. The rhetoric has alarmed vaccine experts and major medical groups, who have said that there is no new scientific evidence to justify further breaking up shots and that doing so could leave children vulnerable to infectious diseases for longer. Some said such an action would take years to get regulatory approval.
“That is an incorrect way of giving the vaccine because vaccines are formulated so that the total dosage that they’re getting is the one that delivers the best immune response,” said José Romero, who was a top health official in Arkansas during the coronavirus pandemic and then at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He consults for the pharmaceutical industry on vaccines and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious-diseases committee.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about which childhood vaccines Trump was referring to. Last month, the president signed an executive order calling to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines and spacing out the shots. He is also seeking to break up the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate single-disease shots, which are not currently available in the United States.
The AAP has said claims that the number of vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule can overwhelm a child’s immune system are “inaccurate and dangerous.”
Trump’s comments came during a news conference Friday focused on the administration’s push to tie drug prices in state Medicaid programs with lower ones in other wealthy nations. On Thursday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the anti-vaccine group he founded and told attendees at the Children’s Health Defense conference that they have a “strong and steadfast friend at the White House.”
During Kennedy’s speech, he made multiple claims about vaccines that medical experts say are misleading and pledged to fight for those who say they were injured by vaccines. The latest remarks by Trump and Kennedy signal that the administration is not shying away from vaccine rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections despite earlier warnings from Republican pollsters.
A reporter on Friday asked Trump what his message was to other states worried about measles, citing Pennsylvania state officials reporting four measles-associated deaths.
“I think we’re going to be in good shape,” Trump said. “We have nothing against vaccinations for measles.” He turned to Kennedy, who said: “We encourage people to vaccinate. It’s on all the CDC’s websites.”
The measles outbreak in Pennsylvania has been the subject of a bitter political feud between Kennedy and Gov. Josh Shapiro. As of Friday, the state’s measles cases this year rose to 767.
Shapiro, who is widely expected to run for president, criticized Kennedy’s appearance Thursday at the Children’s Health Defense conference.
“He needed to say one sentence: I urge all Americans to get the measles vaccine now to protect themselves and their families during this deadly outbreak,” Shapiro wrote on social media. “Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it.”
Kennedy and other federal health officials have strongly disputed that notion, saying he has stated that the MMR vaccine is the most effective way to prevent infection.
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