It is not clear whether the order, the president\u2019s third to address the topic in less than a year, has any legal power.<\/p>\n
For the third time in less than a year, President Trump on Monday issued an executive order that calls for American children to be routinely immunized against fewer diseases, as they are in countries like Denmark.<\/p>\n
The latest version embraces more explicitly than its predecessors a revised schedule that recommends immunizing children against 11 diseases, rather than the 17 that are currently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The order also \u201cdirects the attorney general to advance legal challenges against states that violate children\u2019s rights to religious or medical vaccination exemptions,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n
Speaking in the Oval Office before signing the executive order, Mr. Trump said he was motivated in part by concerns over whether vaccines were tied to autism, even though dozens of studies have found no link between the two.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether the order has any legal power. Vaccine recommendations in the United States are made by a committee of experts who advise the C.D.C., and are then adopted by the agency\u2019s director. But only states can require vaccinations for children to enter school or day care.<\/p>\n
The administration\u2019s previous attempt at implementing a shorter vaccination schedule was already frozen once by a federal court. That ruling is part of a continuing lawsuit, brought by medical organizations, that argued that the administration did not follow proper procedure and that it made \u201carbitrary and capricious\u201d decisions. A judge agreed with that claim, saying the government had bypassed the careful, evidence-based practice that has traditionally underpinned vaccine recommendations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not likely to address the court\u2019s concern, and is not a legally valid way to fill the statutory requirements about vaccine recommendations, it\u2019s just not,\u201d said Dorit Reiss, an expert on vaccine policy and law at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.<\/p>\n
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