Trump wants to change the vaccination of children. He insists that this will reduce autism.

Trump wants to give vaccines to children in five smaller doses. Doctor: That will not work The American President Donald Trump announced that his administration plans to recommend a new vaccination schedule for children according to which certain vaccines will be divided into five smaller, separate injections. Experts warn that this approach would not make vaccines safer, but rather completely ineffective, writes CNN. "Instead of a child coming and receiving a large amount of different vaccines injected all at once, we will recommend five doses labeled with numbers one to five. They would be given at intervals of six months so that a small amount of vaccine is injected into the body," Trump stated on Friday. He asserted that the changes will lead to "a large reduction in autism cases," although extensive scientific research has not found any link between vaccines and autism. Trump added that "certain vaccines have been removed because they are not needed until the child is much older," but he did not specify which vaccines are in question. He specifically mentioned only the vaccine against polio, which he called "incredible." Experts: The vaccination plan would make vaccines useless Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, rated Trump's proposal as "ridiculous." He explained that reducing the dose and increasing the number of injections would make vaccines ineffective, and would not contribute to their safety. "In vaccine development, there is a curve of response to the dose to determine the minimum amount that causes a protective immune response. You don't want to give too much because it is not necessary, but you don't want to give too little either, because the effect would be subimmunogenic," said Offit, meaning that the dose would not stimulate an immune response. For CNN, this is summarized: "What he proposes will not work. He is actually saying that he wants to give vaccines in a way that they will not provide protection." Offit rejected the thesis that vaccines overload the children's immune system. He emphasized that vaccines expose the body to a much smaller number of stimuli than those we encounter in the environment daily. "Every day you create a billion new B and T cells to cope with viruses and bacteria. Vaccines are a negligible challenge compared to what you face daily. The idea that vaccines overload the immune system and cause chronic diseases is simply a fabrication," he concluded. Political Background and Earlier Announcements Minister of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood by Trump during the announcement of the plan. The day before, Kennedy received applause at the press conference of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, where he told participants that "there is a strong and unwavering friend in the White House" and that "he will remain in this fight." The U.S. Department of Health did not respond to CNN's request for details about the plan Trump presented. This is not the first such move by Trump. In November, he signed an executive order to change access to vaccination and then insisted that infants should receive fewer vaccines over a longer period. He also proposed that the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) be divided into three injections, despite the lack of scientific evidence for this. Trump had previously claimed that children are injected with "large amounts of vaccines, like a bucket" or "a volume of liquid the size of a soda bottle." In reality, the standard dose of the MMR vaccine is 0.5 milliliters, which is about a tenth of a teaspoon.