Maine rejects new federal childhood vaccine guidelines

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(The Center Square) — Maine won't be going along with the Trump administration's newly issued federal recommendations on childhood vaccination regimens, Gov. Janet Mills said.

On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order separating the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunizations at separate appointments. 

Trump called the move a “major victory for parents rights, religious and constitutional rights, and for the gold standard science" and said it was prompted by concerns about a link between vaccines and autism. 

But Mills criticized the order and said the state "will continue to follow the science and the facts," while the state's guidance on childhood vaccine schedules "remains unchanged" by the president's executive order. 

“President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are playing politics with the lives of our nation’s children," Mills, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Vaccines are safe and effective and save lives." 

Mills has previously clashed publicly with Trump over his executive orders, including a push last year to block states from allowing transgender athletes to compete in women's sports. She has refused to comply with Trump's transgender directives, telling the president during a recent meeting of governors: "See you in court."

Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former anti-vaccine activist, have repeated claims that the large numbers of childhood vaccines are contributing to a rise in autism spectrum disorders, despite what critics say is scientific evidence pointing to the contrary. 

"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," Trump said Monday. "In those times, people were much healthier and of course the high rates of autism now observed did not exist."

Trump's order, which reduces the number of recommended vaccines from 18 to 11, also calls for the development of aluminum-free vaccines and conducts tests to determine if those alternatives are safer and more effective than existing vaccines.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement that there is "no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance" and that delaying or skipping shots "is risky, especially as measles continues to spread and children go back to school." 

"Dozens of studies involving millions of people show there is no link between vaccines and autism, and yet federal leaders continue to promote this outdated, disproven idea to scare families," AAP President Andrew D. Racine said in a statement. "The only purpose of this announcement is to sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines."