President Donald Trump announced on Monday, August 10, 2026, that he will sign an executive order designed to increase confidence in the childhood vaccination schedule by providing families with greater flexibility. According to a fact sheet obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the order includes three main policies aimed at aligning the vaccination schedule with what is described as “gold standard science.”

Trump highlighted that the United States has historically recommended more childhood vaccines than peer nations, stating, “For a long … and far too long period of time, America has recommended more childhood vaccines than any peer nation and nearly twice as many doses as many European countries. In many cases we required 72 jabs for our healthy, lovely, delicate little children.”

The executive order encourages states to harmonize their vaccination policies with a Health and Human Services (HHS) study that found America’s 18-disease childhood vaccination schedule to be more crowded than those in other high-income countries in Europe and Asia. It grants families the option to space out vaccines over separate medical visits and to receive the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine as three single-disease shots.

Additionally, the order calls on the HHS Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, originally created by a 1986 law but neglected since 1998, to produce a report within 90 days on how to implement the executive order. This includes exploring ways for the commercial sector to produce individual MMR shots and recommending research on optimal spacing of vaccines.

A White House official said, “By signing this executive order the president is helping Americans who are asking questions, especially post COVID, about vaccine requirements, and opening up a dialogue to encourage public trust. We are still recommending the measles and the polio vaccine.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on July 27 that Trump was increasing pressure on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. to address these vaccine schedule concerns. HHS had previously reported in a metaanalysis last year that the U.S. vaccination schedule was out of step with many other wealthy countries and recommended 11 critical vaccines with broad international consensus.

White House officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation that this new executive order builds on prior ones, with Trump himself expected to educate the public about the changes from the presidential platform.

Sources