The World Health Organization has criticised the Trump administration’s changes to the US childhood vaccination schedule, warning that they could undermine immunity as measles outbreaks worsen and political debates intensify around vaccine safety.
The World Health Organization has criticised the Trump administration’s overhaul of the United States childhood vaccination schedule, warning that the changes could delay or reduce protection for children just as measles cases have surged. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the policy was not aligned with decades of evidence and should be based on independent scientific review rather than politics.
Under the new approach, federal recommendations have been cut from 18 diseases to 11, with vaccines for influenza, COVID-19, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus and meningitis no longer broadly recommended. In those cases, the decision would depend on a child’s risk profile or on shared judgement between doctors and parents. According to The Guardian and El País, the administration has also repeated its claim that vaccines are linked to autism, despite the absence of scientific support for that theory.
The changes were promoted alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose long-standing scepticism about vaccination has made him a divisive figure in public health. Medical groups have warned that spacing out doses or making more shots optional could leave children exposed to preventable illnesses. The concern is sharpened by the recent measles outbreak, which experts say is one of the worst seen in the US in decades.
There is also a legal backdrop to the dispute. Earlier this year, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked parts of the administration’s plan after a challenge from the American Academy of Pediatrics, halting proposed changes to the schedule and to the advisory committee that guides vaccine policy. The ruling underscored a central point in the broader fight: that childhood immunisation policy in the US has become as much a legal and political battleground as a medical one.
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