The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

In mid-August 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing federal recommendations for routine childhood immunizations from 17 down to 11. The directive also proposes splitting the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot into separate individual doses and spreading visits out over time, while repeating unproven claims linking vaccines to autism.

Details of the Executive Order:

• Fewer Core Vaccines: Reduces universal federal vaccine recommendations to 11 diseases, designating shots like COVID-19, flu, and hepatitis for high-risk cases or shared patient-doctor decisions rather than broad routines.
• Splitting MMR Shots: Urges drugmakers to supply and transition toward separate single-disease shots for measles, mumps, and rubella instead of the standard combination dose.
• Spaced-Out Schedules: Encourages parents to schedule extra doctor visits to administer shots individually rather than concurrently.
• State Exemptions: Directs the Justice Department to review and challenge state policies restricting religious or medical vaccine exemptions for schools.

Public Health and Medical Response:

• There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. Major medical groups and decades of global scientific research emphasize there is no causal link between vaccines and autism.
• Nor is there evidence that spreading out vaccines is beneficial. In fact, doing so increases the window in which kids are vulnerable to infection. Doctors’ groups, therefore, lined up to denounce the order. The head of the American Academy of Pediatrics called it “not only disheartening but dangerous.” It puts “children’s health at risk,” said the boss of the American Medical Association.

• Practical Hurdles: Single MMR injections are not currently licensed or widely manufactured in the U.S., meaning production shifts could take years.
• Increased Risk: Health experts warn that requiring multiple separate office visits increases costs, raises inconvenience, and could cause more children to miss crucial doses entirely.

As The Economist reports: The central fact of this executive order is that it will have little practical effect. “States, not the federal government, normally set vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. And most of them are guided by abundant evidence that vaccines have driven down rates of infectious disease by a miraculous degree. But as the administration injects more doubt and confusion into decisions over vaccines, parents are increasingly declining them. Measles vaccination coverage among kindergarteners is 92.5%, down from 95.2% in 2019. That is worryingly low: an estimated 92-94% of a community must be immune to stop measles from spreading. Many areas are already below that threshold, helping to explain why 2026 has already outpaced all of 2025 for measles cases.”

Editorially, the Wall Street Journal clarifies that “The President’s declaration of ‘Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations’ largely follows a much-disputed HHS report in January that advised fewer vaccines on the childhood schedule. Mr. Trump likes to paint a golden sheen on everything, but his proposed regimen isn’t based on rigorous science, or really any science at all. Echoing HHS’s January report, Mr. Trump claims American children receive more vaccines than those in many European countries. That’s true, but the U.S. also has a more diverse population. Hepatitis B—which often spreads via contaminated drug needles and can be transmitted from mothers to newborns—is much less common in western and northern Europe than in the U.S. Many European countries with socialized health systems also don’t want to pay for childhood vaccines for relatively rare diseases (e.g., meningitis) even if they can prove lethal—or even for more prevalent viruses like RSV and flu that can require emergency care. Regardless, when has Mr. Trump sought to emulate Europe?”

Dominique Mosbergen of Time magazine observes that “ Doctors say they most fear what the executive order will do to increase vaccine hesitancy and uncertainty. ‘This action follows an alarming pattern of government efforts to reduce Americans’ access to vaccines and sow unfounded doubt about vaccine safety and effectiveness,’ said Dr. Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America, in a statement . . . ‘Kennedy is an antivaccine activist. As the secretary of the health department, you would think that he would care about the health and wellbeing of children in this country, but he doesn’t,’ pediatrician Paul A. Offit says. ‘And he’s winning—now we have more cases of whooping cough, flu, and measles in children than before.’”

How should we think biblically and Christianly about all this? Quite amazingly, the “vaccine doubter” movement is growing in America. Those who adhere to this elixir believe that the risks of vaccination are much greater than the risk of the diseases vaccines are supposed to prevent.  This is especially stunning because, in the words of columnist Daniel Henninger, “Life without serious disease for the majority is now taken for granted as the natural order.  The young don’t sign up for health insurance because they don’t need it. Forgotten over time is the extraordinary human effort and intelligence that produced the good life today. The young women turning against vaccinations, a decision that potentially imperils the lives of others in their communities, have mothers or grandmothers with personal experience of the last great pre-vaccine disease, which was polio. During the great polio epidemic of the 1950s, most people knew a classmate or relative who caught this infectious disease, which invaded the spinal column and often made them paralytic for life.  Others, then in grade school, simply died.”   As a result of the anti-vaccination movement, US measles cases have jumped 300%.  Others have made vaccinations an ethical issue out of concern over the source of some vaccination serums.  According to a Pew Foundation poll, today about 9% of Americans consider vaccinations unsafe!

How has this truly incredibly anti-vaccine movement taken hold among some, including especially among evangelicals? At the popular level, the focus must include a “third-tier celebrity” named Jenny McCarthy who declared on an afternoon TV program that vaccinations can cause autism in children. For a small minority, vaccinating children has become an issue in American politics!

What are the arguments of those who have embraced the anti-vaccination movement and how should we think about each argument? Family doctor, Matthew Loftus, who practices in the Baltimore, Maryland area, has capably addressed these arguments and presents reasonable responses to each.  In this edition of Issues in Perspective, I have drawn heavily upon his material.

Argument #1: There is a link between vaccines and autism.  This claim is sourced in a 1998 article by British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, in the medical journal, The Lancet.  Jenny McCarthy drew heavily on this article.  However, in 2004, The Lancet recanted the study after a medical panel concluded that Wakefield had been dishonest and had violated basic research rules.  Follow-up studies have been done covering more than 12 million children and have found absolutely no link between vaccinations and autism.

Argument #2:  Vaccines use cells from aborted fetuses.  Dr. Loftus demonstrates that some vaccines are made using cell lines from animals and fetal tissue.  The Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission compares such use to using organs from a person who was murdered.  These circumstances certainly evidence the reality of living in a fallen world, but is it cooperating with evil?  In this fallen, broken world it is almost impossible to do anything without cooperating, however distantly, with evil.  “As the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission noted, getting a vaccine that uses these cell lines doesn’t fuel the number of abortions; likewise, avoiding such vaccines doesn’t prevent abortions from happening.  There are far more effective ways to advocate for the lives of the unborn—one that doesn’t pose health risks to us or our neighbors.”

Argument #3: “I do not want the government telling my family what to do.”  This is a faulty claim because, although all 50 states require vaccinations for children entering public school, 48 states grant exemptions for religious reasons.  Dr. Loftus also cites a recent poll which found that most doctors are willing to at least delay vaccines based on parents’ wishes.

Argument #4:  Measles were on the decline even before the vaccine debuted in 1963.  This is true, but it is important to acknowledge as well that measles vaccines have nearly eradicated this disease and that the decline in measles before the vaccine was due to medical advancements across the board.

Argument #5: I should simply focus on keeping my children healthy without vaccines.  Dr. Loftus:  “Herd immunity” means that as long as 95% of your neighbors are vaccinated, your children are safe.  But as more parents rely on “the herd immunity buffer and don’t get their kids vaccinated, herd immunity will vanish.”

The benefits of vaccines to the human race are evidence of God’s common grace and this touches on our faith and our public witness as Christians. For example, Dr. Loftus asks us to consider the risk versus benefits of the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.  A combination of studies involving millions of subjects finds that the benefit is incredibly high.   The result is ever-decreasing rates of measles, mumps and rubella, together with decreased death and disability from these diseases worldwide.  In contrast, the risk of harm is demonstrably low:  “About one in six children have a low-grade fever or rash the day of the shot . . . The scientific evidence overwhelmingly suggests that vaccines carry a high chance of benefiting us and an incredibly low chance of harming us.  The more effective a health intervention is in saving lives, the more morally responsible it is for a community to promote it.”

Finally, permit me three concluding thoughts that stem from a Christian worldview rooted in our stewardship responsibilities before God:

• Health issues are stewardship issues. Dr. Loftus writes that “health means stewarding all the resources God has given us to bring about human flourishing and full image-bearing among our families and neighbors.  Preventing the most deaths for the lowest cost with the simplest interventions is a core part of stewardship . . . By giving our bodies just enough ingredients to develop immunity instead of waiting for disease to strike, we’re proactively conforming to a pattern of wholeness.”
• Health issues involve the biblical mandate to care for the poor—the orphans and widows of our society.  Therefore, not vaccinating our children elevates the risks of infectious disease among the poor and “immunosuppressed.”  As Dr. Loftus persuasively argues, that, from a global perspective, this is an even more acute issue.  Previous generations bore the risks of smallpox vaccination. Now this disease is eradicated worldwide and the vaccine has saved millions of lives. Polio may soon be eradicated as well.  Vaccines are a crucial and necessary weapon against diseases that would otherwise kill many of whom are poor worldwide. In my opinion, it is unconscionable to not vaccinate our children. The larger risks over time of not doing so are enormous! It is also important to remember an essential fact about worldwide missions:  Using vaccines, medical missionaries have represented Christ to the non-Christian world. These Christian missionaries have saved thousands, perhaps millions of lives in the name of Jesus.
• God is sovereign and He is in control of all things. His common grace is one of the clear biblical principles resonating throughout Scripture. Through His grace, God has allowed medical professionals to “explore the body and its functions in their original goodness; [to] identif[y] patterns of decay brought by sin; and to undo or prevent those patterns from harming our bodies and minds.”  Medicine, including vaccinations, rest on God’s mercy and grace. The Creation Mandate is to represent Christ in all things, including the fight against disease and anything that debilitates and harms other image-bearers of God. When we vaccinate our children we represent God well in caring for our bodies and the bodies of our children. It matters to God that we do that. We fulfill a vital stewardship responsibility before Him.

See Wall Street Journal editorial (12 August 2026); Dominique Mosbergen in Time (12 August 2026); The Economist (13 August 2026); Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal (12 February 2015); Marvin Olasky, “Shot Selection” in World (21 March 2015), pp. 63-65; and Matthew Loftus, “Why I Still Vaccinate,” in Christianity Today (May 2015), pp. 32-38.