Watch Live: Trump signs order on vaccination recommendations
President Trump is signing an executive order on childhood vaccine schedules Monday.
Updated on: August 10, 2026 / 3:25 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — President Trump signed an executive order on Monday laying out new recommendations for childhood vaccinations, saying that while "we do not know" exactly what the cause of autism is, it is "essential" to have the "best vaccine recommendations in the entire world."
A draft of the order, which was obtained by CBS News before the president signed it, said there should be a more limited number of vaccines recommended for children. It directed the Health and Human Services Department to reassess vaccine sequencing and timing within 90 days. The draft order CBS News reviewed didn't mention autism, but the president did — repeatedly.
As he prepared to sign the order, Mr. Trump said, "Today, we're proud to officially announce the United States of America's Gold Standard Childhood Vaccination Recommendations and that has to do with many subjects but including autism in particular," said the president.
"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," the president said. "In those times, people were much healthier and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. So, there's a reason for such epidemic rates of autism. And we're going to bring it back to much closer to where it was."
"While we do not know exactly what the cause is with respect to autism, it is essential to our research efforts that we have the very best vaccine recommendations in the entire world," he continued. "So we're reducing them, we're changing it to visits over the period of a year, a year and a half, so they get 20% of what they would have gotten in one big shot."