WHO CHIEF WARNS TRUMP VACCINE OVERHAUL CONTRADICTS SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

The World Health Organisation warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's order to overhaul childhood vaccination policy in the United States contradicted "decades of evidence". Trump signed the order on Monday, calling for a rethink of school vaccine mandates and renewed separation of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three individual shots. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that vaccination policy should be guided by "rigorous, independent and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence".

Tedros said the scientific evidence was "unequivocal" that vaccines, including the MMR vaccine, are safe and do not cause autism. Trump's Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr has promoted a disproved link between the MMR shot and autism, and founded an anti-vaccine group. The WHO chief warned that the recent changes to US immunisation policy were "not aligned with decades of evidence that show when children are most vulnerable to disease". He also cautioned that "delaying vaccines or separating doses unnecessarily does not make vaccination safer and can leave children unprotected".

Since joining the Trump administration, Kennedy has launched a review of established vaccines, rewritten the childhood immunisation schedule and reduced funding for new vaccine development. The WHO stated it remained concerned about the direction of US immunisation policy given the divergence from established international guidance.