On Monday, Donald Trump doubled down on his weird and eugenic obsession with autism by signing an executive order calling to split up the MMR vaccine for children into three separate shots given in three separate appointments. "I wanna find what's going on with autism," Trump said in a press conference held upon signing the executive order, in case his intentions were not totally clear. He then proceeded to estimate the volumes of vaccines with an inscrutable measuring system, referring to "vats of vaccines," a "big shot like a large glass of something" and "a vaccination thing that looks like the size of a bottle of soda," as well as syringes containing "what seemingly looks like gallons."

Although it feels increasingly pointless and embarrassing to refute the rantings of a man who increasingly looks and speaks like a Furby, it is still valuable to do so. The MMR vaccine—a combination shot that protects against measles, mumps, and rubella—is perfectly safe. It is also convenient, as it means parents do not need to schedule three separate doctor's visits to fully vaccinate their kids. And thought the conversation rate between a gallon, a vat, and a large glass of something remains unclear, none of these measurements apply to the MMR vaccine, which is typically 0.5 milliliters, or a tenth of a teaspoon. (What is this, a vat for ants?)

There is another combination shot, the MMRV, which adds a vaccine for varicella (chickenpox) to the mix and comes with a slightly increased risk of a fever-associated seizure if given to a child younger than 4. But, as Anil Oza explains for STAT, there is little evidence suggesting that further breaking up the MMR vaccine would offer any benefit to a child's health or safety. What three vaccines does offer is inconvenience for parents and doctors, higher cost, and more physical injections for the kids. Separating shots also increases the chance that a child will get infected by a vaccine-preventable disease before they return to the doctor. Vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. do not even make single-shot versions of the MMR shot, and manufacturing single-dose vaccines would take years of research and testing.

To explain why he wants to split up the MMR into three vaccines, Trump offered the following evidence: "This is based on what I feel." But he likely got the idea from disbarred British physician and antivaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, who he met with in 2016. Wakefield is the author of a now-retracted 1998 paper in the Lancet that linked autism to the MMR vaccine. Wakefield's paper stoked widespread fear among parents and triggered a decline in MMR vaccinations that led to measles outbreaks across the United Kingdom. Wakefield now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is seen as a martyr of the anti-vax movement. In this way he is just the latest in a long line of fraudsters for whom the U.S. serves as a safe haven.

Trump's order also cuts the number of shots recommended for children from 18 to 11, removing vaccines for rotavirus (which causes severe watery diarrhea and vomiting) and meningococcal disease (a bacterial infection that can cause bloodstream infections and lead to amputation), as well as COVID-19 and the flu. Even if a link with autism were real (and it is not), in Trump's America, amputations are apparently more desirable than autism.

What does this mean for parents? Luckily, an executive order is not a law and has no clear legal power. The states, not the federal government, control which vaccines are required for schoolchildren. And insurance will still cover these vaccinations. In the spring, a federal judge blocked the government from implementing vaccine policy changes made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the grounds that he and his cronies made "arbitrary and capricious" decisions not based on science. Trump's new recommendations, seemingly made in response to the court blocking those proposed changes, are equally arbitrary and capricious. But the executive order has already and will continue to sow chaos and confusion among parents. And it may exert influence on Republican-led states to change their vaccination policies.

In 2026, vaccine disinformation has become as contagious as the diseases they prevent. In 2026 we have seen more cases of measles than any other year since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, a direct result of widespread adoption of the MMR vaccine. For now, parents who wish to vaccinate their kids in the easiest and safest way will still be able to do so. But the more disinformation that comes from the Trump administration, whether or not it is legally enforceable, will only encourage more parents to withhold vaccines from their kids, who, of course, are the most vulnerable people in this whole mess, and who will be subject to aggressive medical interventions when they contract a disease that could have been safely prevented in a single, small shot.