Trump Orders Change That Could Reduce Childhood Vaccines Recommended for Kids

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order in Washington directing the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to align its childhood vaccine guidance with a federal assessment calling for fewer recommended immunisations.

According to CBS News, the policy shift instructs health agencies to reassess the current US schedule, potentially reducing the number of vaccines advised for children and adolescents across the country.

The decision follows months of internal review across federal health agencies, after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an assessment earlier this year arguing that the United States recommends more childhood vaccines than many peer nations.

Trump's Childhood Vaccines Recommendation

The policy change began late last year when President Trump asked health officials to review whether US childhood vaccine schedules matched what he described as 'best practices' in other developed countries. That review, released in January, found that the US recommends more childhood vaccine doses than several similar countries, including some in Europe.

After that report, the CDC revised its guidance, lowering the number of routine childhood immunisations from 17 to 11. However, it kept vaccines in place for 11 major diseases, including measles, polio, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and HPV.

At the same time, some vaccines, such as those for RSV and hepatitis-related conditions, were recommended mainly for children at higher risk rather than the general population.

The White House says the latest executive order continues this effort, arguing it is meant to support 'gold-standard science' and give doctors and parents more flexibility when deciding on vaccinations.

But the issue has become politically sensitive.

The CDC's advisory panel, which helps set vaccine policy, has faced major changes in leadership under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has previously questioned vaccine guidance. Some of the newly appointed members have also expressed scepticism about established recommendations, which has raised concern among medical professionals.

Scientific Pushback

For starters, not all of the underlying assumptions behind the policy shift are universally accepted within the medical community. The American Academy of Pediatrics has publicly pushed back against the federal assessment, arguing that most developed countries maintain similar vaccine schedules and that differences often reflect local health risks rather than over-vaccination.

'We don't follow Denmark's vaccine recommendations because we don't live in Denmark,' said Dr Jose Romero, a member of the group's committee on infectious diseases. 'Children in the United States are at risk of different diseases than children in other countries. We also have a completely different health system.'

That disagreement has already spilled into the courts.

In March, a federal judge ruled against aspects of the revised HHS vaccine schedule in a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others, finding that changes to the advisory process under the new panel had not followed established legal standards. The ruling also stated that the government had 'disregarded' traditional scientific procedures in its approach to vaccine recommendations.

Despite that, the Trump administration has continued to argue that US children are routinely scheduled to receive more immunisations than those in some comparable nations, particularly in Europe, and that the federal review is intended to bring the system into closer alignment with international norms.

Why American Children Get More Vaccines

The reason the US appears to recommend more childhood vaccine doses than some other countries is mainly down to how its health system makes decisions about disease prevention and how it counts vaccines in its schedule.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adds vaccines based on recommendations from expert advisory groups that look closely at disease risk, including infections that are still present or considered a potential threat in the country. This includes vaccines for illnesses like HPV, hepatitis A and B, and others that some countries may introduce later in childhood, or not include in the same way.

Another key reason is scheduling. The US often gives vaccines in separate doses rather than combining them into one shot, which increases the total number of recommended doses even if the diseases covered are similar. Some European countries use more combination vaccines, which reduces the number of injections on paper.

Health experts often caution that such comparisons can be misleading. Vaccine policies differ because countries assess their own disease patterns, healthcare systems, and public health priorities rather than following a single global standard. This means countries, like the US, may group vaccines differently, target different disease risks, or follow separate public health strategies.