Donald Trump's executive order advising states to offer separate vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella will confuse parents, reduce uptake of the combined MMR jab, and endanger children, according to a Guardian editorial. The president's empty advice, echoed by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, fits an anti-science agenda that threatens decades of public health progress.
Empty choice and unavailable vaccines
For the moment, what Trump is proposing is an empty choice. The individual vaccines are not available, the Guardian notes. They have not been widely used in decades. In the US and in the UK, they don't have a licence. To get one, pharma companies such as GSK and Merck & Co would probably have to run new clinical trials to prove that they work and are safe, which would take years. Both companies have already said that no published scientific evidence supports splitting the MMR vaccine into single shots, and they are not rushing to invest in making them, despite the president's enthusiasm.
Trump's executive order, signed in April, advises states to offer separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, involving six visits to the clinic, instead of the combined MMR vaccine, which does the job in two. For decades, the vast majority of families have been taking the advice of doctors, accepting their assurance that the MMR vaccine is safe and very effective. The president's announcement that the triple jab could be 'quite lethal' undermines that trust.
Echoes of the 1998 Wakefield controversy
The Guardian editorial draws a direct parallel to the furore caused in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who declared that the MMR vaccine was linked to the gut disorder Crohn's disease and thence to autism. His evidence-free advice was for parents to seek separate vaccines. As now, they were not readily available, so many children went without. Measles vaccination levels dropped alarmingly and measles cases rose, the Guardian reports.
Struck off as a doctor, Wakefield now lives in Texas, hero-worshipped by vaccine sceptics. His views are embraced by all those suspicious of or hostile to the medical and scientific establishment, including Trump and his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. They fit an anti-science agenda that has recently seen the pursuit by a congressional committee of Dr Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to Covid-19 and is now being accused of covering up its origins.
Shrinking the vaccine schedule and its risks
Trump and RFK Jr already aim to shrink the vaccine schedule in the US from 18 to 11 shots, citing Denmark, where fewer vaccines are given to young children. But Denmark offers universal high-quality healthcare and excellent screening programmes to pick up those at risk. The US does not, and children fall through the cracks, the Guardian warns.
No other country recommends single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. But such is the confusion that some parents are likely to take away the message that the combined jab is unsafe – and that no jab is a better choice. The Guardian editorial concludes that President Trump is putting at risk the very 'beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children' that he claims to care about.
