Sept 18 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump said on Friday that his administration plans to demand vaccine makers split certain childhood shots into five separate doses, which he believes will result in a massive reduction in autism, an idea repeatedly debunked by scientists.
Trump did not provide any scientific evidence linking vaccines and autism. Nor did he say which vaccines the administration plans to split into smaller doses.
“We’re going to recommend that they do five doses … and that they be given in six-month intervals so that a small amount of the vaccine gets pumped into the body,” Trump said, speaking at an event in the Oval Office.
Trump already signed an executive order in August calling for fewer childhood vaccinations by limiting the inoculation schedule to 11 immunizations, which he said would give US children “gold-standard” protection and align the country with peer nations that recommend fewer shots.
That order directed Americans to receive separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines even though none of the individual shots are licensed in the United States and experts say it could take years before any become available, if they ever do.
The order advances a long-standing goal of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who has promoted a link between vaccines and autism that scientists have repeatedly debunked.
(Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Spicer )
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