The American Medical Association released an executive order this weekend, which President Trump signed on Friday, that confirms its intention to model U.S. childhood vaccine recommendations after Denmark — a country with universal health care, low diversity and a population roughly the size of Maryland.
“There is no credible scientific evidence to support such a change,” AMA President Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement. The current vaccine schedule, he said, is “built on decades of rigorous research and real-world data, and it is designed to protect children in America when they are most vulnerable, based on our nation’s disease burden.”
The plan to align federal childhood vaccine recommendations with Denmark’s was first revealed by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January. The overhaul will see the total number of recommended vaccinations drop from 17 to 11, while scaling back recommendations for shots against rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B. It stemmed from a December executive order by Trump to align U.S. vaccine recommendations with “best practices from peer, developed countries.”
Following that order, Trump administration officials conducted a “comprehensive scientific assessment”, concluding that the US should emulate Denmark. The work was done by two Trump administration political staffers, Tracy Beth Hoag, a sports medicine doctor, and Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician, neither of whom has expertise in vaccine policy, but both of whom are anti-vaccine allies of Kennedy.
The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the time—Jim O’Neill, a technology investor—signed off on the changes. But in March, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction that reversed the changes, finding that Kennedy violated federal rules in implementing them.
“Crazy and Crazy”
While the federal government is appealing that injunction, the new executive order on Friday confirms Kennedy’s plan to adopt Denmark’s strategy, which calls for “reshaping” U.S. vaccine policy with “best practices from peer, developed countries.” It says the scientific assessment written by Hoegh and Kulldorff is a “guiding resource for the federal government” and that the CDC “will take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccination program.”
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