Trump's vaccine plan faces logistical and financial hurdles

Public health experts have criticized President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at revamping childhood vaccinations in the U.S., citing unprecedented financial and logistical challenges for parents, healthcare providers, and drugmakers. The order calls for separating combination shots, like the MMR vaccine, into individual injections and spacing them out.

To comply, drug manufacturers would need to revive individual vaccines not marketed separately in the U.S. for decades and build new facilities to produce millions more doses. This would likely involve significant investment and take years, with experts estimating tens of millions of dollars and substantial time for new studies and manufacturing approvals.

For parents, this shift would mean numerous additional doctor's appointments, potentially straining pediatricians and increasing costs associated with supplies. Health experts argue there is no scientific basis for this change, with Dr. Anna Durbin of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health stating it is "very bad public health policy" with no justification.

Companies like Merck and GSK, which currently supply only combination vaccines, have affirmed the safety and effectiveness of their existing products but have not detailed plans to unbundle them. The U.S. has used combination vaccines like MMR since the early 1970s, and the process of developing and gaining approval for individual versions, a step with no precedent, would be complex and lengthy, potentially taking about five years for plant construction alone.