US President Donald Trump said that American children are overvaccinated and instructed the US Department of Health and Human Services to look at vaccination schedules in other countries.
The American leader reported on Truth Social that he signed a new directive ordering the US Department of Health and Human Services to “urgently conduct a comprehensive assessment of vaccination schedules in other countries... and to better calibrate the US vaccination schedule so that it is finally based on the gold standards of science and common sense“.
Trump expressed confidence that the agency will “accomplish this task quickly and appropriately“ in the interest of American children.
He said the US vaccination schedule "has long required that perfectly healthy children receive 72 vaccines - far more than any other country gets, and far more than is necessary". "That's just ridiculous," the US leader stressed. "Many parents and scientists have questioned the effectiveness of that schedule, as have I."
Trump also noted that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had made a "very good" decision not to recommend further hepatitis B vaccinations for children in the United States. The president expressed confidence that most American children "have no proven risk" of the disease.
The White House released Trump's directive. It stresses that the US Department of Health and Human Services should, in particular, examine vaccination schedules in “developed countries“. The document notes that children in Germany, Denmark and Japan are vaccinated against fewer diseases than in the US.
Trump and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. have previously said that the increase in autism cases in children in the United States may be linked to vaccines. Kennedy Jr. has expressed skepticism about the use of several vaccines. Some US experts accuse him of supporting the anti-vaccination movement, a charge he has repeatedly denied.