While issuing an executive order on Monday aimed at getting states to revise childhood vaccine recommendations, President Donald Trump and others in his administration repeated several false claims about those vaccines, as well as their relationship to autism.
The order recommends separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate single-disease shots and administering childhood vaccines at separate appointments whenever possible.
But many public health experts expressed concern about the recommendations, saying that spacing out the shots could increase the risk that children would become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. They noted that childhood vaccines and how they should be given have been rigorously studied around the world for decades, and continue to prove to be safe and effective at protecting children.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
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TRUMP: “In many cases, we were requiring 72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children.”
THE FACTS: That’s misleading. In 2025, the government’s childhood vaccination schedule recommended routine protection against 18 diseases. How many separate injections that added up to between birth and age 18 varied. It depended on things like the brand used, the availability of combination shots and the child’s starting age. But unless you counted once-a-year flu vaccines (which some kids can get as a nasal spray) or COVID-19 shots, the number of injections was closer to three dozen.
Those shots have been proven to protect children from preventable and sometimes devastating diseases. Even so, vaccines were never “required,” as families could opt out. States do require children to get certain vaccines before enrolling in school, but the state lists of school shots were narrower than the federal vaccine schedule, and many states offer different types of exemptions.
The Trump administration in January cut the national vaccine recommendations to injections against 11 diseases, with additional vaccines now separately categorized for at-risk children or as available through “shared decision-making” with a doctor. This drops the total number of injections to about 23 if children receive only the recommended-for-all vaccinations on the administration’s new schedule.
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TRUMP: “You have the MMR, we want it in three separate vaccinations given at separate times. Together there could be a possibility they are quite lethal and separately, it looks like they are not at all lethal but just very effective.”
THE FACTS: This is false. Doctors say, and years of real-world evidence prove, that the current combination MMR vaccine is both safe and effective at protecting children from illness. Common side effects are mild and include a sore arm from the shot, fever, mild rash and temporary pain and stiffness in the joints. Doctors point out that separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella are not available in the United States.
“I’m concerned about an unintended consequence of people under vaccinating because of fear that giving a single dose of the MMR is going to put their child at risk when there’s no evidence to suggest that’s the case,” said Dr. Aaron Milstone, pediatric director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System and a fellow with the American Academy of Pediatrics. “There are many, many, many years of scientific data highlighting the safety of vaccines in children.”
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TRUMP: “Large amounts of vaccine, large amounts of like vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child’s body.”
