Donald Trump is pushing Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, to cut vaccines more aggressively, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Kennedy, who leads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has previously been a leading critic of vaccination. The latest push comes after the White House put a hold on vaccine-schedule changes following polling that suggested they were a losing issue in the midterm elections. White House Weighs Vaccine Changes Against PoliticsThe Journal said Trump wants Kennedy to make deeper cuts to the US vaccination schedule. It reported that the president raised the issue during a visit to Kennedy’s golf course in northern Virginia in May, asking whether the health secretary had the “yips”. Trump also questioned, the Journal reported, whether Kennedy had been making enough reductions to vaccination recommendations. Earlier in the process, the White House stopped changing vaccine recommendations after internal polling indicated that anti-vaccine moves would not play well with voters. The Journal also reported that Trump hopes “alleviating autism” will be part of his legacy and has taken issue with the pace of vaccine changes in recent months. Polling Tracked Anti-Vaccine Risks In Swing DistrictsTony Fabrizio, a senior pollster for Trump, concluded in a December memo that scepticism towards vaccine requirements was politically risky for both parties, the Journal reported. Separately, the Rolling Stone reported that Susie Wiles had set a New Year’s Eve deadline for HHS to make changes so that vaccine policy would fade from view ahead of the midterms. Despite those concerns, Trump’s priorities appeared to shift after the polling findings. Two days after the Fabrizio memo, the president issued a directive for HHS to align US vaccination recommendations with those of “peer” nations, even though the US was already making similar recommendations to other countries, the Journal said. Kennedy Cuts The Routine Schedule, Then Judge Steps InThe impact of Kennedy’s policies was swift. The Journal said he cut the routine childhood immunisation schedule by one-third, reducing it from 17 recommended vaccines to 11. A federal judge ordered a halt to the changes after a lawsuit filed in March by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The judge also paused the work of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which he said had been illegally formed under Kennedy, according to the Journal. Kennedy has not made further significant changes to the schedule since the court order, while the US government appealed the judge’s stay. Autism Research, Executive Actions And Vaccine BacklashKennedy has continued to speak about autism and possible causes, and the administration has linked the vaccine issue to that broader effort. The Journal reported that Trump issued an executive order in May urging HHS to change vaccine recommendations, and Reuters reported that Kennedy sought to divert $5bn in funding—more than 10% of the National Institutes of Health budget—towards research on vaccines and autism. Other researchers and medical groups dispute a link between vaccines and autism. Decades of studies into autism’s causes point overwhelmingly to genetics, and dozens of studies have found no connection between vaccines and autism, the article said. Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, did not dispute details reported by the Journal in a statement to the Guardian. He said the administration was responding to parents of autistic children who had “questions and concerns”, adding that those concerns had long been ignored or mocked. HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said Kennedy and Trump were “aligned” in addressing what she called a “chronic disease epidemic affecting America’s children”. She said HHS would continue “evidence-based research” into the causes of autism and other chronic diseases. In comments reported by the article, Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Trump has held an anti-vaccine position for years and that his approach makes him unlikely to dismiss Kennedy despite rumours of leadership change. Offit also linked the administration’s stance to public health outcomes, saying measles and other diseases have surged, with measles at its highest rate in 30 years and increased deaths from whooping cough, flu and tetanus in recent years. Join the discussion? 29 July 2026
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