The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed President Donald Trump’s new executive order appeasing anti-vaccine activists at the cost of public health.
The main highlights of the order are declaring several shots on the pediatric vaccine schedule no longer universally advised, including hepatitis A and B, dengue, influenza, COVID, and rotavirus — as well as recommending that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) shot be separated into three shots that are administered at different times. None of this has any backing by medical experts.
“Breaking up the MMR shot would require changes in production that could take years. It would also likely reduce immunizations by requiring more trips to the doctor’s office. Thanks, Dr. Trump,” wrote the board, also noting that while Trump claims American children get more shots than in much of Europe, “the U.S. also has a more diverse population. Hepatitis B — which often spreads via contaminated drug needles and can be transmitted from mothers to newborns — is much less common in western and northern Europe than in the U.S.”
What’s alarming, wrote the board, is that while these recommendations aren’t mandatory for states to adopt, he is laying the groundwork to strongarm them into doing so.
With Trump’s order in effect, “the Justice Department could sue states for infringing on parental authority if they require vaccines for school attendance that differ from his recommendations,” said the board. “State police powers to protect public health can sometimes be in tension with parental rights, and some states overstepped during the pandemic, though none mandated Covid shots for school-age children.”
Ultimately, this is all the vision of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who, the board concluded, has his own ulterior motives for all this.
“Mr. Kennedy and his plaintiff lawyer friends benefit from spreading vaccine skepticism,” said the board. “But Mr. Trump’s jab at children’s vaccines could alienate voters who are already souring on his second term. The other risk: more measles.”