Trump pushes RFK Jr to slash vaccines more aggressively, report says
According to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump is urging Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to cut vaccine recommendations further, despite polling showing such moves are unpopular. Experts warn of rising preventable diseases.
Donald Trump is pressuring Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine critic, to take more aggressive action in cutting U.S. vaccination schedules, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The White House had previously halted changes to vaccine recommendations after polls indicated the issue was a losing one in the midterm elections. Kennedy recently made an unprecedented move by slashing the routine childhood immunization schedule from 17 to 11 vaccines.
Trump reportedly asked Kennedy at a May meeting at his Virginia golf course whether the health secretary had the "yips" – meaning he wasn't cutting enough. The president wants to make "alleviating autism" a key part of his legacy and has been frustrated with Kennedy's less aggressive approach in recent months.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center, noted that Trump has been anti-vaccine since at least 2015, citing his statements at a Republican debate and social media posts linking vaccines to autism despite decades of research showing no such connection.
Tony Fabrizio, Trump's top pollster, found that anti-vaccine moves are unpopular with voters in key districts, calling them "politically risky." A federal judge later halted Kennedy's vaccine schedule changes after a lawsuit from the American Academy of Pediatrics, also pausing the work of an advisory committee that was illegally formed.
Kennedy also sought to divert $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health budget toward studying vaccines and autism. The Trump administration has appealed the judge's stay.
A White House spokesperson did not dispute the Journal's report, instead pointing to parents of autistic children whose concerns have been ignored. An HHS spokesperson said the administration is committed to confronting the chronic disease epidemic.
Offit warned that Trump is "the most powerful anti-vaxxer in the world" and predicted that the surge in measles – now at a 30-year high – and rising deaths from whooping cough, flu and tetanus will be Trump's legacy, not advances in understanding autism.
