"The order recommends that all shots be given at separate medical visits, a frequent point Trump has made despite the safety, ease and lower costs of giving vaccines together."
'“Together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal,” Trump said of the MMR vaccine at the signing of the order on Monday.'
'Asked if he had evidence that the combined MMR vaccine was “lethal”, Trump said: “No. What I’ve heard is that there are some people who say it is that way.”'
Antivax fundamentally has its contemporary roots in Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-MMR campaign.
So directing by executive order and by his own admission without evidence that the MMR vaccine be split up into separate shots is, very clearly, an antivax action. This is the first victory that Wakefield (a man who had a patent on a single measles vaccine!) wanted, and RFK Jr was pursuing.
But this is Trump saying this and signing it. So as of yesterday, it now has everything to do with Trump, sorry. He has handed the anti-MMR movement its ultimate victory and in so doing validated the entire antivax worldview.
See my other responses. Obviously this is bad. But the current measles outbreak is a symptom of a problem that's been happening over the last 1 or 2 decades. It literally CANNOT be caused by this, neither in the US or Canada.
It's still not too late for anyone who is unvaccinated to get the vaccine! Hopefully the next administration undoes this change, but the really important part is managing to shrink the anti-vax movement (which, if you look at the data in my other comments, you can see has been a problem since before Trump).
FWIW I think Trump #1 (45) wasn't an anti-vax presidency; it might have been suspicious of healthcare professionals (for the good reason that so many people know opioid epidemic victims) and he was always a bit equivocal around hydroxychloroquine and bleach and "powerful light inside the body" but Trump didn't start to lean antivax until not long after Biden took over.
(And let's be clear: Operation Warp Speed was an enormous success even if Trump is an ignoramus)
Some of that might have been expediency — Biden was catching shit from the antivax and healthcare-skeptical movement and moving in on that would be easy — but Trump has always been vulnerable to being influenced by people and RFK Jr appears to be generally so much more persuasive than bears thinking about, so he was a factor later on.
Trump #2 (47) is fully an anti-vax presidency; even Hegseth backed away from flu vaccine mandates, only to have an outbreak in an Army (IIRC?) facility.
"The order recommends that all shots be given at separate medical visits, a frequent point Trump has made despite the safety, ease and lower costs of giving vaccines together."
'“Together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal,” Trump said of the MMR vaccine at the signing of the order on Monday.'
'Asked if he had evidence that the combined MMR vaccine was “lethal”, Trump said: “No. What I’ve heard is that there are some people who say it is that way.”'
Antivax fundamentally has its contemporary roots in Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-MMR campaign.
So directing by executive order and by his own admission without evidence that the MMR vaccine be split up into separate shots is, very clearly, an antivax action. This is the first victory that Wakefield (a man who had a patent on a single measles vaccine!) wanted, and RFK Jr was pursuing.
But this is Trump saying this and signing it. So as of yesterday, it now has everything to do with Trump, sorry. He has handed the anti-MMR movement its ultimate victory and in so doing validated the entire antivax worldview.