Governor Josh Shapiro said Pennsylvania will not change its immunization guidelines in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on Monday.
The executive order asks states to “consider updating” laws to require fewer vaccinations for all schoolchildren and advises states to review school-entry vaccine laws.
The order also calls for the combined MMR vaccine to be split into separate measles, mumps and rubella shots once those products are available domestically and says childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.
According to the White House’s press release, the Department of Health and Human Services “completed a scientific assessment, which identified a set of consensus vaccines that are consistently recommended in all peer countries and found that the United States currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations”.
“The scientific assessment also found that, instead of implementing vaccination mandates, most peer nations maintain high childhood vaccination rates through public trust and education,” the press release continues. “In the United States, by contrast, individual States set mandatory vaccination requirements that children must meet to attend school.”
Trump’s earlier attempt to reduce the number of recommended vaccinations was blocked in federal court. The new executive order is not binding and states are free to ignore it, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Shapiro posted the following on X.com Monday:
Once again, Donald Trump and RFK Jr. are screwing around with the childhood vaccine schedule — ignoring decades of science, sowing chaos and confusion, and spreading dangerous misinformation that put kids and families at risk.
We’ve already taken RFK Jr. to court to protect Pennsylvanians’ freedom to make the best health care decisions for themselves and their kids. And my Administration will continue to give Pennsylvanians clear public health guidance based on science and facts.
Because here in Pennsylvania, we trust experts, doctors, and parents to make the best decisions for our families — not conspiracy theorists.
In December, the Trump administration directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a review of childhood vaccines and examine childhood vaccination requirements in other countries. The review stripped seven vaccines—rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus—of their recommended status.
In February, Shapiro joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s scaling back of recommended childhood vaccines.
Earlier this month, Shapiro signed Executive Order 2025-02, which is intended to safeguard Pennsylvanians’ access to vaccines and makes school-level vaccination data available online through a new interactive tool created by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) and the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).
“The new tool makes it easier for parents and community members to view annual vaccination rates at individual schools — not just at the state or county-level like before — boosting transparency and giving families a clearer picture of how well protected their children’s classrooms are”, the announcement said.
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