Vaccines

Axios - President Trump's call for a controversial overhaul of the childhood immunization schedule puts high-risk vaccine policy changes front and center just three months before the midterm elections.

The most immediate impact of yesterday's executive order may be political, if childhood vaccines are as popular as polling suggests. But the announcement could further erode trust in vaccines and public health, in the midst of foodborne and infectious disease outbreaks, including measles. And it undercuts the agencywide reset HHS has been charting over the past several months, through filling vacancies with more mainstream picks and promoting efforts to lower prescription drug prices and make the food supply healthier.

Trump yesterday signed an executive order calling for a slimmed-down childhood vaccine schedule and breaking the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine into three separately administered shots.

It also advises states to review federal vaccine recommendations and update their requirements for school enrollment.

At an Oval Office signing event, Trump suggested the MMR vaccine could be "quite lethal," though, when pressed, acknowledged he had no evidence, adding there are "some people that say it is that way."

"The worst thing that would happen would be, nothing happens," he told reporters. "We're not going to lose anything. At the same time we could gain tremendous - save hundreds of thousands of lives, millions of lives."

The overwhelming majority of scientists and public health experts say the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, and though the shots do have rare side effects, no link to autism has been found in numerous studies.

"It is simply astonishing that this administration would continue to respond to ongoing measles outbreaks and the return of other vaccine-preventable diseases by playing politics with children's lives," said Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.