Right on cue, here comes the left airing a list of grievances against President Trump and his new Executive Order (EO) seeking to provide parents clarity and options when making decisions about vaccination schedules for their children.
Vaccines are a hot topic these days, to be sure, and the support or objections don't necessarily fall along ideological lines. The sting of betrayal from public officials who promised us the COVID vaccines were safe – paging Dr. Fauci! – still lingers for many.
And, course, the debate still rages about whether or not there's a connection between childhood vaccinations and autism.
First off, I don't begrudge anyone questioning vaccines, whether they are my conservative brothers and sisters or not. I'm the mother of a high-functioning autistic adult. My son has a full-time job, owns his own car, and is about to move out on his own, but the path getting here wasn't easy. And, yes, I questioned the vaccines he received as a baby – I've never been convinced one way or the other, but I certainly did not appreciate being told not to question it.
Sure, I'll trust the science as soon as I can trust the people pushing it.
But, some of the backlash we're seeing over the EO seems to be your standard "if Trump's for it, I'm against" mentality afflicting too many Americans (and certainly members of the media).
Let's be clear on what the EO did and didn't do. It did recommend that healthy children get immunized for 11 diseases, down from the prior CDC recommendation of 18. It did not abolish the vaccines for those other 7 diseases, and families can still opt for their kids to receive them.
The EO did recommend the option of splitting the MMR vaccine into three separate shots that can be spaced out according to the preferences of the parents. It did not outlaw the all-in-one vaccine. Again, it's up to parents to decide what's right for their family.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 10, 2026
Of course, there are all kinds of stories out today about how President Trump is really putting parents in a "bind" with these new recommendations. The people who scream "my body, my choice!" about abortion would really rather parents have no options when it comes to vaccines.
From a Bloomberg article published Tuesday morning:
President Donald Trump’s proposed sweeping changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, whether ever actually implemented or not, are yet another affront to public health in the US.
Upset that the president chucked out the recommendations of so-called "vaccine advisors" – paging Mrs. Fauci! – the author then complains that stretching out the vaccine schedule, which, again, is up to the parents, places an undue burden on families.
That groan you hear? That’s the sound of working parents everywhere imagining the scramble to get their frequently needle-fearing kids to all of those unnecessary appointments. Already stretched pediatricians, meanwhile, are surely gathering somewhere for a collective primal scream. Worst off are the moms and dads who don’t get paid time off, don’t have easy transportation to the doctor’s office and will no doubt worry about paying for each of those separate visits.
That’s what makes this cavalier attempt to overhaul to the vaccine schedule so dangerous: children would easily fall through the cracks.
They never grow tired of telling parents they're too stupid to figure things out for their own families, do they?
The real traitor here, of course, is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. They're still mad that he defected from their side – he'll never get a free pass for that – but they truly loathe him for continuing to question if vaccines play a role in the dramatic uptick in autism diagnoses in recent decades.
SEE ALSO: Here’s Your Reminder That Mrs. Fauci Was Pretty Awful, Too
Trump Targets Childhood Vaccine Schedule With Sweeping New Executive Order
And they really don't like when autism parents praise Kennedy for listening to their vaccine concerns because these busybodies decided last century that vaccines had nothing to do with it. And don't you dare question them about it.
That, more than anything, is what Trump’s order seems to acknowledge: parents are allowed to ask questions. They’re allowed to weigh risks, seek second opinions, space out vaccines, decline some, and accept others. They’re even allowed to arrive at conclusions that make the self-appointed guardians of “the science” uncomfortable.
After COVID, public-health officials should be doing everything possible to rebuild trust with American families. Instead, too many of them still seem to think trust can be commanded and anyone who hesitates or questions information must be shamed back into line.
That era needs to be over starting yesterday.
