At the stroke of a pen – along with his usual stream-of-consciousness prose – Donald Trump has wilfully ended decades during which the United States has been considered a paragon of excellence in the field of public health.
Past occupants of the Oval Office used their bully pulpit to encourage families to avail themselves of the best tools physicians have to safeguard and improve public health. But not Trump.
The US President flipped that on its head on Monday, using the powers of his office to sow fresh scepticism about vaccines and to undermine public health orthodoxy more broadly. Signing an executive order that bypasses Congress, he directed the Department of Health and Human Services, led by veteran vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr, to cut the number of childhood jabs recommended by the federal government from 18 to 11, and to space out inoculations over a longer period of time.
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From behind the Resolute Desk, Trump then ignited a potential public health nightmare that his successors could spend decades trying to reverse.
