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Agence France-Presse

The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul child vaccination in the United States went against “decades of evidence”.
Trump signed an order on Monday pushing for a rethink of school vaccine mandates and repeating calls for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be separated into three separate shots.
His Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr founded an anti-vaccine group and has long promoted a disproved link between the MMR shot and autism.
But WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the science was “unequivocal: vaccines – including the MMR vaccine – are safe and do not cause autism”.
“Vaccination policy should be guided by rigorous, independent and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence,” he warned in a social media post.
He said that the WHO was “concerned that recent changes to US immunisation policy are not aligned with decades of evidence that show when children are most vulnerable to disease”.

Tedros said that “vaccines provide the strongest protection, how many doses are needed, and which vaccines can be given together safely”.
“That evidence is reviewed continuously as new data emerge from across the globe.”
The WHO chief also warned that “delaying vaccines or separating doses unnecessarily does not make vaccination safer and can leave children unprotected”.
Medical research has never established any link between autism and vaccination, but sceptics including Kennedy continue to suggest that there might be one.
Kennedy has launched a major review of vaccines, including some that have been in use for decades, overhauled the child vaccination schedule, and cut funding for the development of new vaccines – measures that have been strongly condemned by the medical and scientific community.
US courts earlier this year suspended a shake-up of vaccination policy he had initiated.


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United States

WHO chief warns Trump’s vaccine policy overhaul is against ‘decades of evidence’

A nurse mixes a dose of the measles, mumps and rubella virus vaccine at a pop-up clinic  in Carrollton, Texas. Photo: TNS

US President Donald Trump, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr on his right, holds up a sign that reads “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday. Photo: TNS

A nurse, vaccinates a girl inside a mobile clinic in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Photo: TNS

Trump signs order to revamp childhood vaccines, against medical groups’ guidance

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jnr (right) and US President Donald Trump with an executive order calling for more research and flexibility on vaccines, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Monday. Photo: AFP via Getty Images / TNS

A vial of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine at the International Community Health Services clinic in Seattle, Washington, US. Photo: Reuters

Changes to childhood vaccine recommendations usually require approval from the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Photo: Reuters

Dr Erica Schwartz at her confirmation hearing to become director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in Washington on July 15. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

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US President Donald Trump switches planes at an airbase in Suffolk, eastern England, on his way back to Washington from the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, last month. Photo: AP

Air Force One sits on the tarmac in Ankara on July 8. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Man charged with bomb threat against US consulate in Canada

Police direct people asked to evacuate the US consulate in downtown Halifax, Canada on Monday. A suspect was charged with making a bomb threat on Tuesday. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

A police officer near the US consulate in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on Monday following a bomb threat. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

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Former US marine Robert Gilman attending a court hearing in Voronezh, Russia in April. Gilman was released by Russia on humanitarian grounds on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Former US marine Robert Gilman attends a court hearing in Voronezh, Russia, in April. Gilman, who served in the US marines from August 2019 until August 2020, ‌was arrested in January 2022 in Voronezh. Photo: Reuters

Robert Gilman and his sister, Lexie Hudson, in Lilburn, Georgia, in 2019. Photo: AP

News

Science & Technology

The WHO director general also refutes a view by vaccine sceptics linking autism with the measles, mumps, and rubella shot


The WHO director general also refutes a view by vaccine sceptics linking autism with the measles, mumps, and rubella shot.


WHO chief warns Trump’s vaccine policy overhaul is against ‘decades of evidence’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The WHO director general also refutes a view by vaccine sceptics linking autism with the measles, mumps, and rubella shot

The WHO director general also refutes a view by vaccine sceptics linking autism with the measles, mumps, and rubella shot