While issuing an executive order on Monday aimed at getting states to revise childhood vaccine recommendations, President Donald Trump and others in his administration repeated several false claims about those vaccines, as well as their relationship to autism.The order recommends separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate single-disease shots and administering childhood vaccines at separate appointments whenever possible.But many public health experts expressed concern about the recommendations, saying that spacing out the shots could increase the risk that children would become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. They noted that childhood vaccines and how they should be given have been rigorously studied around the world for decades, and continue to prove to be safe and effective at protecting children.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.___TRUMP: “In many cases, we were requiring 72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children.”THE FACTS: That’s misleading. In 2025, the government’s childhood vaccination schedule recommended routine protection against 18 diseases. How many separate injections that added up to between birth and age 18 varied. It depended on things like the brand used, the availability of combination shots and the child’s starting age. But unless you counted once-a-year flu vaccines (which some kids can get as a nasal spray) or COVID-19 shots, the number of injections was closer to three dozen.Those shots have been proven to protect children from preventable and sometimes devastating diseases. Even so, vaccines were never “required,” as families could opt out. States do require children to get certain vaccines before enrolling in school, but the state lists of school shots were narrower than the federal vaccine schedule, and many states offer different types of exemptions.
