WASHINGTON, D.C. — Independent Women today applauded President Trump’s latest executive order advancing a significant recalibration of America’s childhood vaccine policy. This shift moves away from a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach and toward greater precision, transparency, parental partnership, and continued scrutiny of the childhood immunization schedule.
The executive order, titled “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans” builds on the administration’s broader effort to reassess how childhood vaccines are recommended, timed, and administered. According to the order, it maintains universal recommendations for vaccines against 11 diseases, while placing other vaccines into categories based on individual risk and shared decision-making between families and their physicians. It also calls for greater flexibility in vaccine timing and sequencing and further research into vaccine administration and ingredients.
While millions of Americans are vaccinated against various diseases every year in the U.S., Dr. Monique Yohanan—Independent Women’s Director of the Center for Better Health, mom, a physician and public health expert with decades of experience—argues “not all vaccines are equally important in terms of either public health or individual health.”
About today’s executive order, Dr. Yohanan said: “This is an important recalibration of childhood vaccine policy. Precision in public health means balancing community protection with individual risk, continually working to make vaccines as safe as possible, and respecting parents as partners in their children’s health. The one-size-fits-all approach has undermined trust; this more thoughtful, evidence-based approach can rebuild that trust and improve confidence and uptake of the vaccines that matter most.”
Independent Women’s 2025 vaccine-policy paper authored by Dr. Yohanan, titled “Rethinking Vaccine Policy: A Case for Humility, Precision, and Parental Partnership,” calls for this exact recalibration of America’s vaccine policy.
BACKGROUND: INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S “RETHINKING VACCINE POLICY” PAPER
In the paper, Dr. Yohanan exposes critical information gaps in the current childhood vaccine schedule, including for Hepatitis B, and calls for a thoughtful recalibration of public health policy—one rooted in humility, scientific precision, and genuine partnership with parents. Her work urges policymakers to move beyond the outdated “one-size-fits-all” system that continues to dominate today’s public health landscape.
Learn more about Independent Women’s vaccine policy paper here.
To expand on these ideas and serve as a resource for households trying to navigate conflicting health information, Dr. Yohanan filmed with Independent Women’s Features (IW Features), the grassroots storytelling and original journalism arm of Independent Women, for a two-part documentary series that was released last year, titled “A Dose of Humility.”
- WATCH PART ONE: A Dose of Humility: The Promise and Purpose of Vaccines
- WATCH PART TWO: A Dose of Humility: The Trade-Offs and Economics of Vaccines
In the documentary and in her vaccine policy paper, Dr. Yohanan categorizes vaccines into three distinct categories:
Category 1: True Herd Immunity
Category 2: Community Transmission
Category 3: Individual Protection Only
Independent Women welcomes a childhood vaccine policy that continues asking the hard questions, acknowledges differences between diseases and vaccines, preserves access, and treats parents as partners rather than obstacles.
Direct media inquiries and booking requests to [email protected]
###
Independent Women’s trusted experts, analysis, and data enable us to drive informed conversations to build support for better policy solutions.