5 questions parents may have after Trump's latest vaccine move

Filed 1w ago · Via NPR · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Hyperfun

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

President Trump signed an executive order on childhood vaccines Monday in an Oval Office ceremony attended by health officials and a conservative commentator, who called it historic. Pediatricians say that as of now, every vaccine on the recommended childhood schedule is still available, insurance coverage is unchanged, and no new research or vaccines exist.

The order calls for splitting the MMR vaccine into three shots, though no such separated doses currently exist in the U.S.; officials say they'll work with drugmakers to explore making them. Experts note this would mean more shots, not fewer, contradicting the administration's own complaint about over-vaccination.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump repeatedly invoked autism at the signing, despite the order not addressing autism and the vaccine-autism link having been debunked by numerous studies. Researchers say the bigger risk may be the rhetoric itself denting public confidence in the existing, unchanged schedule.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

This is governance as theater: sign something dramatic, invoke a debunked fear, and let the cameras do the rest while the actual policy changes nothing. The genuine risk here isn't the paperwork, it's the seeds of doubt planted in an Oval Office photo op ahead of an election. Parents are being asked to worry about a policy that, so far, is entirely make-believe.

Source: Read the original at NPR → Scored: Hyperfun · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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