President Trump signed an executive order week directing the CDC and ACIP to review the latest clinical data and align the US childhood vaccine schedule with best practices from peer developed nations.
The order also requires all federal departments and agencies to ensure their actions fulfill legal obligations with respect to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under law.
Dr. Robert Malone, former co-chair of ACIP who recently stepped down, published a Substack analysis describing it as the executive order that may change the vaccine debate forever. His reading of the key language, "to the extent permitted by law," is that it pulls authority over vaccination policy, medicine, and research back under the executive branch and returns ACIP to its original function as an advisory body. For decades, ACIP has operated as a de facto policymaking authority. This order tells them that role is over.
The next ACIP meeting will be the first real test of whether that line holds.
It is also worth noting that this executive order was signed as the Department of Justice filed a brief at the Supreme Court urging it not to hear the case of New York healthcare workers fired for refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds.
One hand of this administration is expanding parental authority and religious protections around vaccines. The other is working to establish a legal precedent that says firing someone for their religious beliefs is perfectly acceptable.
Groups inside this administration are not on the same page...