Donald Trump, former Covid-19 vaccine booster, is now the nation’s most high-profile critic of immunization mandates.
The former president has on the campaign trail promised to strip funding from schools with vaccine requirements and lambasted independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “fake” anti-vaxxer, while obscuring his role in speeding the development of the Covid shot when he was president during the pandemic.
Trump’s new anti-vaccine persona could have far-reaching consequences if he’s elected to a second stint as president with far-reaching administrative powers. Public health experts say a White House opposed to immunization mandates could potentially cause upticks in cases of measles, polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases, or hamper efforts to fight a future pandemic.
The CDC could pare back the number of vaccines it recommends children receive or eliminate those recommendations entirely. The CDC could change the paperwork required to be shared with parents to make vaccines sound less safe than they are. Or the FDA could increase the number of years of safety testing required for new vaccines and impose other onerous requirements for vaccines to be approved in the U.S.
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