Below are the opening paragraphs from a news item in Health Policy Watch. Full text: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/experts-condemn-trumps-vaccine-order/
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‘This is so Wrong’: Experts Condemn Trump’s Vaccination Order
Health experts have condemned United States President Donald Trump’s latest move to direct childhood vaccinations via a decree rather than a scientific process.
Trump signed an executive order on childhood vaccinations on Monday, which he claims will align the US with the “best practices from peer, developed countries”.
The order recommends fewer vaccinations, one vaccination per clinic visit for kids and – most controversially – that the combined measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine be “administered in three separate single-disease shots”, describing this as the “gold standard”.
Virtually the entire world, bar Japan, administers single MMR vaccinations, which is easier for parents and children.
Making the announcement, Trump and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr repeated the debunked notion that vaccines may be linked to autism.
Trump also claimed that the combined MMR vaccine was “quite lethal” and said that, “by the age of one year, children should have five separate visits for vaccinations, not all their vaccinations in one day”...
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Dr Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), described the order as “not only disheartening but dangerous” – particularly as “measles cases reach a 35-year high in the US and with cold and flu season [is] quickly approaching”. “Today’s executive order is not based on ‘gold-standard science’,” Racine added. “There is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance. Dozens of studies involving millions of people show there is no link between vaccines and autism, and yet federal leaders continue to promote this outdated, disproven idea to scare families.”
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org