Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order recommending that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine be split into three separate shots.

“The MMR, we want to have separate visits separate times. The vaccine being broken into three separate single doses and vaccines being administered in separate visits,” Trump said, claiming without evidence that it is safer to receive the immunizations individually.

The order sparked criticism from doctors and public health organizations, which said decades of studies and real-world evidence have shown that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective as administered. Splitting the vaccine into three shots would create a major logistic burden for families with no safety benefit, doctors say.

Read more from ABC News.

Trump administration officials and other prominent Republicans falsely suggested this week that Covid-19 vaccines were linked to miscarriage, seizing misleadingly on old text messages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s that were recently released by Republican senators.

In January 2021, when Covid vaccines had just been released, Dr. Fauci and other Biden administration officials discussed the limitations of the data then available about vaccination during pregnancy, as well as the theoretical risks for pregnant women based on information available at the time. Since then, studies of hundreds of thousands of women have shown that Covid vaccination is not linked to an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or preterm birth.

Read more from the New York Times.

A controversial 2024 study that some vaccine skeptics used to argue that millions of people likely died as a result of COVID vaccines has been retracted over misinformation and issues with the research.

The article was originally published in the BMJ Public Health in May 2024. It analyzed data from 47 Western countries and concluded that there had been more than three million excess deaths between 2020 and 2022, a statistic known as excess mortality.

Read more in Scientific American.

As the Trump administration rolls out a revised childhood vaccine framework, Colorado’s law allowing the state to set its own immunization schedule has now taken effect.

Issued Monday, President Donald Trump’s executive order separates childhood and adolescent vaccines into three categories: those recommended for all children, certain high-risk groups and “based on shared clinical decision-making.”

The order also calls for administering the measles, mumps and rubella or MMR, vaccine in three separate doses and for administering all childhood vaccines at separate medical visits.

Read more from Colorado Politics

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first mRNA flu vaccine, enabling use of a technology that will make it easier to rapidly target a widely prevalent or particularly virulent strain of the virus.

The approval of the vaccine, called mFLUSIVA, which is manufactured by Moderna, follows a series of blows to mRNA research directed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including the cancellation of 22 projects meant to develop vaccines with mRNA technology through the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Read more from the New York Times.

Lawmakers flooded statehouses this year with bills seeking to dismantle vaccination rules or raise questions about vaccine safety, introducing more than 200 measures in 34 states.

The bills challenged every part of the system that states rely on to vaccinate the public, from the pamphlets patients receive before getting a shot to the requirements schools, day care centers and employers can implement. A proposal in Wisconsin would have designated October as “Immunization Injury Awareness Month.” A bill in Iowa would have eliminated all vaccination requirements for elementary and secondary schools.

Read more in the New York Times.

With the school year approaching, Colorado law requires students in kindergarten through 12th grade to be vaccinated before returning to class, unless they have an exemption on file.

The state requires six vaccines for K-12 students, with some required before a student begins kindergarten:

• Hepatitis B (HepB)
• Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP)
• Inactivated poliovirus (IPV)
• Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR)
• Varicella (chickenpox)
• Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (Tdap)

Read more from KKCO News.

The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year. The case count toppled the record set last year, when measles infected more than 2,200 Americans and killed two unvaccinated children. More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined.

Read more from the New York Times.

In response to abrupt and politicized changes to federal vaccine policy, concerned Coloradans have taken several steps to shore up support for vaccine science.

A new law passed by the state legislature, and signed by Gov. Jared Polis (D), allows Colorado to further uncouple itself from federal guidance.

The law allows health officials to follow the recommendations of national medical groups when making decisions such as purchasing bulk vaccines for the Medicaid program.

Read more at NPR.