Key facts
- President Donald Trump announced plans to demand vaccine makers split certain childhood vaccines into five separate doses.
- The proposed doses would be administered at six-month intervals.
- Trump claimed the change would lead to a significant reduction in autism.
- No scientific evidence was provided to support the link between vaccines and autism.
- Public health experts criticized the proposal, stating it lacks scientific justification.
- The plan would require drugmakers to revive decades-old individual vaccines and build new manufacturing facilities.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that his administration intends to require vaccine manufacturers to divide certain childhood vaccines into five distinct doses, to be administered at six-month intervals. Trump asserted that this measure would lead to a substantial decrease in autism rates, although he did not present any scientific evidence to support this claim or specify which vaccines would be affected.
Public health experts have strongly criticized the proposal, with many stating there is no scientific basis for such a change. Dr. Anna Durbin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health called it "very bad public health policy," emphasizing that such changes should only be made for good reasons, which she believes do not exist in this case.
The plan would necessitate a significant overhaul of vaccine production. Drugmakers would need to revive individual vaccines that have not been widely used in the U.S. for decades, as combination vaccines like the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot have been the standard since the 1970s. Experts estimate that designing, constructing, and obtaining regulatory approval for new manufacturing facilities could take approximately five years. Furthermore, pharmaceutical scientists and former regulators suggest that companies might need to conduct extensive studies to demonstrate that these individual shots elicit immune responses comparable to current combination vaccines, a process with no clear precedent for the FDA. Companies like Merck and GSK stated they stand by the safety and effectiveness of their existing products.