Acting CDC director calls for MMR vaccine to be broken up into three shots

[lostincalifornia]

Jim O’Neill, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for drastic changes to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine that aren’t supported by medical research, intensifying the Trump administration’s criticism of a shot that’s a cornerstone of the childhood vaccination schedule.

“I call on vaccine manufacturers to develop safe monovalent vaccines to replace the combined MMR and ‘break up the MMR shot into three totally separate shots’,” O’Neill said in a post on X on Monday. His post did not give a reason for breaking up the MMR shot, but linked to a message from President Trump, which called for separating the shot into three vaccines and giving it at different medical appointments.

Outside experts have previously said that the idea could leave children more vulnerable to infections and is logistically infeasible, because monovalent vaccines for those diseases are no longer available in the U.S.

One study, published in 2017, found that 69% of U.S. children who received a combination vaccine completed the recommended series — compared to 50% of kids whose parents opted for the single antigen vaccines.

https://www.statnews.com/2025/10/06/trump-official-jim-oneill-break-up-mmr-vaccine/