Making sense of Trump's executive order on US vaccinations
President Donald Trump and his Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have long tried to reduce the number of vaccinations available to the US public
President Donald Trump and his Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have long tried to reduce the number of vaccinations available to the US public and even farm animals. The latest move in context. US President Donald Trump signed another executive order on Monday, August 10, 2026: "Delivering gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for Americans." The order reduces the current recommendation of 18 vaccines for children down to 11, which puts it almost in line with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. As DW reported in May 2025, there are vaccines against 30 infectious diseases. The World Health Organization recommends that every child get vaccinated against 12 of those Tuberculosis Hepatitis B Polio Diphtheria Tetanus Pertussis (whooping cough) Haemophilus influenza type B Pneumococcal disease Rotavirus Measles Rubella Human papillomavirus This is the WHO making recommendations for all nations — both rich and poor. Many poor countries face challenges around access to vaccines at prices they can afford and distributing them safely to people living in remote areas. Protecting vaccines in Ghana's rising heat To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Rich countries, on the other hand, can afford and therefore usually offer more vaccinations than the WHO's base level of 12. But not all of them do. Germany, for example, recommends 14 vaccinations for children in their first two years after birth. Germany no longer recommends the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), which is on the WHO list.
It does recommend vaccination against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), which is not on the WHO list. This just goes to show that there are variations around the world. It's not just the US. These variations often depend on which diseases are considered by local health experts to be an ongoing threat to any given community. Taking the example of TB in Germany: In 1998, the country's Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) decided the risk of TB infections was low, and herd immunity was deemed high enough at 50-80%. Therefore the STIKO stopped recommending the vaccine. What does Trump's new childhood vaccine recommendation say? Trump wants to create three distinct categories for vaccination. The first category includes immunizations recommended for all children: measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b (meningitis), pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus and varicella (smallpox). That removes vaccination against hepatitis B, rotavirus, influenza and RSV from this baseline category that were on the recommended list until now. These illnesses however can still affect newborns. As we reported in 2022, cases of RSV have risen in the US and Europe. Babies who don't receive the vaccine would remain unprotected against the illness. By contrast, Germany recommends vaccination for RSV, rotavirus and hepatitis B in a child's first six months. Trump's executive order also recommends that the combined MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella — which is a global standard — be split into individual jabs, spaced over time.
The BriefWire