Executive Order Calls for Changes to Childhood Vaccine Schedule, As Officials Repeat Unsupported Claims About Vaccine Safety
What happened?
An executive order signed earlier this month by President Trump called for further changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, including calling for the combined MMR vaccine to instead be offered as separate shots, and new research on vaccine timing. Although the EO does not explicitly mention autism, Trump repeatedly connected vaccines to rising autism rates during an event for its signing, claiming that the action would lower autism diagnoses.
What does public opinion research tell us about people’s perceptions of vaccine safety?
KFF’s June 2026 Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust found that two-thirds of adults (66%) had heard the false claim that MMR vaccines had been proven to cause autism, with about six in ten (61%) expressing some level of uncertainty, saying the claim was either “probably true” (22%) or “probably false” (39%). That level of uncertainty has remained stable since KFF began asking about belief in that false claim in June 2023, even as research has continued to find no causal association. Notably, few adults (4%) say they think this myth is “definitely true,” while a larger share (33%) say it is “definitely false.”
Eight in ten adults (81%) in the June survey said they were very or somewhat confident in the safety of these vaccines for children, and 84% of parents said the same in the KFF/The Washington Post Survey of Parents conducted in summer 2025.
How is this reflected in online conversations?
Claims about vaccines and autism, both perpetuating and debunking a connection, remain a prominent part of online vaccine discourse. KFF’s monitoring of social media found that on August 11, the day after the EO was signed, the number of posts, reposts, and comments that mentioned keywords relating to both vaccines and autism reached their highest volume of 2026 thus far, across X, Reddit, and YouTube. On that day, more than 38,000 posts, reposts, and comments contained keywords for both of these topics, compared to a daily average of about 5,800 this year as of August 21. While it is not possible to attribute the spike in posts directly to the EO, a share of posts mentioning both vaccines and autism also included a direct reference to the order.
While many posts sought to refute a connection between autism and vaccines, some posts with high engagement repeated false claims about the alleged connection. Some of these posts included video clips of false comments made by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including claims that “none of the vaccines have ever been tested for autism.” Another claimed that Kennedy had “debunked” existing studies about a possible connection.
What does the research on MMR vaccine safety say?
Several studies over the last decade have found no evidence of a causal association between MMR vaccines and autism. Most recently, a retrospective cohort study of more than 2.5 million children published last month found no association between the first dose of MMR vaccination, typically given between 11.5 and 24 months, and autism diagnosis. The new study did not specifically examine the second dose, which is usually given between ages 4 and 6.
There have been no deaths linked to combined MMR vaccination in healthy people, which had been administered more than 800 million times as of 2021.
Why This Matters
Beyond directly suggesting a causal link between vaccines and autism where none has been proven, official calls for more research into a question the scientific consensus already regards as settled introduce an unwarranted perception of uncertainty. These calls may incorrectly imply that existing evidence is inconclusive or that the question remains genuinely open, a framing that research shows can undermine public trust when applied to questions that are already settled. KFF polling from May showed that among parents who reported skipping or delaying vaccines for their children, a large share expressed mixed and uncertain beliefs across several common vaccine myths, underscoring the connection between confusion, uncertainty and these parents’ behavior.
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