This article, about the Trump executive order on vaccines, was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Law, San Francisco, who is a frequent contributor to this and many other websites, providing in-depth and intellectually stimulating articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively about the social and legal aspects of vaccination in law journals. Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines. This parent-led organization supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

On Friday afternoon, May 29, 2026, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Realigning United States Core Childhood Vaccine Recommendations with Best Practices from Peer, Developed Countries.”

This post will review the Trump executive order on vaccines and the anti-vaccine activists’ spin and response.

The Trump executive order on vaccines

In short, the executive order referred to “a scientific assessment” by Doctors Høeg and Kulldorff to claim that the United States “currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation.” The assessment was, in fact, a short memo that claimed that the United States vaccinates more than “peer countries.” It did not, at any point, address why these countries are peers and how we are different — providing little basis for the comparison.

It had a short discussion of each vaccine the two authors thought children in the United States should not routinely get, without discussing the risks of removing the vaccine, and without addressing the costs of cases in either health or money terms, and with a very cursory and incomplete review of the data about the vaccines. In other words, it was an incomplete, biased, and badly done assessment. 

The order made this badly done, short, misleading document “a guiding resource for the Federal Government.” It then ordered that: 

b) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) shall review the scientific assessment and the latest clinical data and, to the extent permitted by law, take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule.  ACIP’s review should consider ways to provide maximum flexibility to parents and doctors through recommendations for timing and sequencing of the administration of routine immunizations.

(c)  Each executive department and agency shall ensure all actions, regulations, funding, and coverage related to child and adolescent immunizations align with the schedule recommended by the ACIP and adopted by the CDC, including fulfilling all legal obligations with respect to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under the law.  Specifically, consistent with the Memorandum and as recommended in the scientific assessment, all the immunizations that are in any category on the schedule recommended by the ACIP and adopted by the CDC should continue to be covered without cost sharing by private insurance and covered by Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Vaccines for Children Program.

What does this mean? Right now, it means little. There is no appropriately appointed ACIP that can act. The order at least implies that ACIP should go through its full review, and then the CDC director should, as always, approve or reject its recommendations. 

The order also made it clear that it wants private and federal insurance to continue covering any vaccine recommended by ACIP, regardless of the category of recommendation – whether routine or shared clinical decision-making.

The order also added some empty language about parental authority, religious freedom, and disability accommodation. This is likely a dog whistle to say to followers, “We are with you and against mandates and for exemptions.” But it is empty, because ACIP does not, and never has, established vaccine mandates. Some states — fewer today — looked at ACIP recommendations in setting their mandate, but that was because, before Kennedy broke it, the committee was respected, not because it was legally required. Again, ACIP does not set mandates. 

There are a couple of other winks to the anti-vaccine side — including discussions about flexibility and freedom, which can be reasonably interpreted as telling ACIP, once it becomes active, to use more shared clinical decision-making. 

I hope it’s clear that in terms of immediate effect, there is nothing much there. 

Why, then, do it? I see two options:

1. A sop to Kennedy. Kennedy has been sidelined in several ways after his chosen FDA and CDC officials were removed from office, and the press reported that he was not allowed to do things related to vaccines — his main focus for decades. This gives him a nod and makes his anti-vaccine followers feel good, without doing anything immediate to help his anti-vaccine agenda.
2. This is preparation for reforming an anti-vaccine ACIP and trying to decimate the schedule again, in a way that would be more likely to survive in court than the last attempt. This is possible, though risky, before the midterms.

The anti-vaccine spin

I would not waste more time on this, having already posted my views on Substack, except that there is apparently a new talking point, shared by both anti-vaccine Dr. Robert Malone and Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy’s former organization. 

Since it’s more concise, here is how Children’s Health Defense said it:

“NO MORE MONOPOLY!! President Trump’s new Executive Order on childhood vaccines isn’t really about vaccines. It’s about power: shifting authority from an unaccountable public health bureaucracy back to elected officials accountable to the voters.  It directs CDC/ACIP to review HHS findings & align recommendations with best practices from other developed nations – reopening debate on timing, safety, and informed consent.”

Dr. Robert Malone also argues that the Executive Order is meaningful in a few ways:

1. He says – correctly – that “the Executive Order adopts the HHS scientific assessment as a guiding federal resource and directs the CDC and ACIP to review that assessment and update recommendations ‘to the extent permitted by law.’” 
2. He interprets that to mean that it changes ACIP’s role, which, he argued, became to “set policy rather than merely advise on it,” to a situation in which “CDC Director, acting under the authority of the Executive Branch, should define the questions to be addressed and the policy objectives to be considered. ACIP should then provide its scientific and technical advice in response. The committee should inform decision-making, not function as an independent center of policymaking.”
3. This will make a constitutional change, according to him, in which “executive agencies and advisory committees advise, while elected officials establish policy and are accountable to the public for those decisions.”

What is wrong with this talking point? Several things.

1. There is nothing in the executive order that suggests any change to ACIP’s usual functioning; in fact, the language suggests that ACIP will take steps to update the schedule, and there is reference to the scientific review process. In other words, what they’re saying is there is not, in fact, there. There’s nothing in it to suggest the CDC director has a bigger role than in the past, nothing to suggest ACIP will just address narrow technical questions.
2. Which elected officials? The only person in the executive branch directly elected is the President. CDC director is appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate, since 2025, but not elected, and Høeg and Kulldorff did not even go through that – using their product as guidance is very much letting unelected appointees set the policy. 
3. ACIP develops recommendations, which are then accepted or rejected by the CDC director. That’s always true. The recommendations have some statutory effects, state and federal, after the CDC director approves them. That is not a change. 
4. Anyone who followed the previous expert ACIP knows that they always drew on studies and considered what other countries did. They just did it in an expert, careful way, considering the differences as well as the similarities.

In short, this talking point is wrong and should not be taken seriously. It may be an attempt to make this look better to their followers, but really, if you need to mislead your followers to keep them with you, you don’t deserve them.