By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-02 11:51:46 | Updated at 2026-09-02 12:51:32
1 hour ago
Several reasons support providing standalone vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella, experts say, including attempting to reduce inflammation.
“The idea is that in a large number of situations, inflammation is a problem, and if you hit with three inflammatory things at the same time, you’re getting more peak inflammation, and you have a better chance of having some sort of problem developing from it,” Dr. Michael Segal, a neurologist, told The Epoch Times.
President Donald Trump wrote in an August executive order that gold-standard vaccine recommendations for children included advising parents to space out vaccines. One way to achieve that, he said, was to split the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine into separate shots and receive them during separate visits to health facilities.
MMR manufacturers Merck and GlaxoSmithKline defended the shots as safe and effective, and several outside groups, such as the manufacturer-aligned American Academy of Pediatrics, said that splitting the combination vaccines was not necessary.
Several experts told The Epoch Times that there are solid reasons to provide standalone options.
Reducing Inflammation
Some children who experience seizures and neurological problems after vaccination have variants in a gene called SCN1A, Segal wrote in op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, pointing to research from 2007.
Inflammation from the vaccines triggered the deterioration, and splitting the MMR vaccine would help lower inflammation, Segal said.
“If my kids were now at the age of getting vaccinations, I would definitely prefer the three separate vaccinations,” Segal told The Epoch Times.
Inflammation of the brain, or encephalitis, is one of the health problems that can be caused by MMR vaccination, according to a federal vaccine injury table. Parents are sometimes awarded millions of dollars in vaccine court after their children suffer brain inflammation.
Giving Parents More Options
Trump’s order emphasizes providing options for parents, and a White House spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email that splitting the MMR vaccine “will give parents more options on timing and frequency for their children, which ultimately will increase vaccination rates for all three diseases.”
Vaccination rates have declined since 2020, including for measles.
A person walks past a sign at a health center where the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine is administered, in Lubbock, Texas, on Feb. 27, 2025. Ronald Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
“We have lost a lot of parents who, through a combination of prolonged … school closures and a loss of trust, simply dropped out of getting vaccinated,” Dr. Monique Yohanan, director of the Independent Women’s Forum’s Center of Better Health, told The Epoch Times.
“So this is a way to increase the likelihood that people who might be hesitant to get the single shot, which is a combined shot, might be more willing to do that if they got one shot at a time.”
Separate vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella were once available in the United States but were phased out in the 2000s. Manufacturers decided to focus on the MMR vaccine because, among other reasons, it would help reduce vaccination delays, Merck said in a 2009 letter to healthcare providers.
Better Timing
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention childhood vaccine schedule, used by many states with little or no change, advises that children receive one MMR shot between 12 and 15 months of age and a second between 4 and 6 years of age.
A sign providing information about measles in Seminole, Texas, on April 9, 2025. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The ideal timing for a first dose of measles is 15 months of age, Yohanan said in a white paper on rethinking vaccine policy guidance that she said has been circulated within the Trump administration. But protection against mumps and rubella is important later in childhood, she told The Epoch Times.
She said that the first mumps shot, if a standalone became available, could be administered at the age of 3, while rubella vaccination might not start until adolescence.
Pinpoint Source of Adverse Events
Providing more standalone vaccines and administering fewer vaccines per visit—some children receive six doses at the same time under the current schedule—would also make it easier to identify the source of adverse events, or health problems that arise after vaccination, Yohanan said in the white paper.
Side effects of the MMR vaccine include febrile seizure and severe allergic reaction, according to regulatory documents, in addition to brain inflammation.
A child receives an MMR vaccine at a clinic run by the Lubbock Public Health Department in Lubbock, Texas, on March 1, 2025. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images
Splitting the MMR vaccine was likely recommended by Trump because all three components are live, attenuated viruses and there is no adjuvant, or component designed to boost the immune response, Segal, the neurologist, said.
Separating the other commonly used combination vaccine in children, the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccine, would be more difficult in part because it has aluminum salts as an adjuvant, he said.
Would It Take 10 Years?
Providing separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots could take up to 10 years, Merck recently said. That includes time to test separate vaccines in clinical trials.
Segal said that hypothetically, the Food and Drug Administration could approve separate vaccines without new trials if they contain the same or similar formulations as the combination vaccine, as is the case with updated shots against COVID-19 and influenza.
“The combination was safe and effective,” he said. “And if you have the three things separately, it shouldn’t require the same level of scrutiny as it would for a completely different type of formulation.”
The FDA did not respond to a request for comment.
Way to Introduce mRNA Vaccines?
One issue with the current MMR vaccine is that the immunity it provides wanes over time, according to studies. That means older people, particularly those who did not survive measles infections, could be susceptible to measles as they age, Dr. Robert Malone, a vaccine researcher, said in a blog post.
Dr. Robert Malone speaks during a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on June 25, 2025. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Splitting the MMR vaccine could result in improved measles vaccines, experts said. It could also lead to new shots that utilize messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, Malone told The Epoch Times.
“Whether that was the intent or not, it is likely to facilitate the development and introduction of mRNA-based alternatives,” he said.
He said that developers would have to address the reactogenicity profile of potential mRNA vaccines, noting that the recently approved mRNA influenza vaccine caused more adverse events in a clinical trial than the standard flu vaccine it was compared against.
