Bill Cassidy

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy blasted a presidential order recommending fewer childhood vaccines just moments after President Donald Trump signed it late Monday afternoon.

“I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes,” Cassidy wrote on X. “Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order. This is so wrong.”

During an Oval Office ceremony, Trump said children should receive only 11 vaccines, which he called the “gold standard” of vaccine recommendations.

“This updated recommendation finally aligns the United States with other advanced and developed nations around the world," Trump said. “It’s not only that you’re doing fewer vaccines, or jabs, as they say, but you’re doing them in fewer visits to the doctor."

Only states have the legal authority to set the immunizations required to attend schools. Trump’s order pressures states to go along with federal recommendations.

Trump’s executive order also recommended breaking up the MMR vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella into separate shots.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his supporters have long raised concerns about a possible link between MMR vaccines and autism.

“The MMR, we want to have separate visits, separate times. The vaccine being broken into three separate single doses and vaccines being administered in separate visits,” Trump said.

Multiple studies have found no benefit in separating the combination MMR vaccine into multiple shots.

Multiple studies also have found no link between MMR and autism beyond an allergic reaction that’s far, far rarer than the risk of getting measles, mumps, or rubella.

“Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism,” Cassidy wrote on X. “Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.”

Other than measles, mumps, and rubella, the order recommends immunizations for chicken pox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal disease, and human papillomavirus.

More than any other senator, it was Cassidy’s support that won over reluctance to confirm Kennedy to a seat on Trump’s cabinet.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic and thus was a controversial pick to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees what shots Americans receive and when.

A physician for 30 years, Cassidy has long advocated vaccinations as a proven way to avoid debilitating, sometimes fatal, maladies.

As chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, his support persuaded enough opposing senators to ensure Kennedy’s confirmation.

Cassidy also at the time was seeking a third term and facing a firewall of criticism from Louisiana conservatives fanned by Trump invective directed at him. Cassidy had backed impeaching Trump on charges of instigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Baton Rouge, and Cassidy was defeated in the May 16 closed party primary. He is serving out the remaining four months of his term.