Top Trump Health Official Praises ‘Admirable’ Measles Vaccine While Defending President’s Sweeping Overhaul

National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya called vaccinating children against measles “admirable” on Fox News Tuesday while still defending President Donald Trump’s overhaul of federal childhood vaccine recommendations.

On Monday, the president signed an executive order reducing the number of diseases covered by universally recommended vaccines from 18 to 11, while shifting others to a category in which parents and doctors decide whether to vaccinate. It also calls for eventually replacing the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine with three separate shots and encourages states to reconsider school vaccination requirements.

Trump also drew scrutiny during Monday’s signing ceremony after claiming the combined MMR vaccine “could” be “quite lethal,” only to acknowledge minutes later that he had no evidence to support the assertion. Medical experts have maintained that the combined MMR vaccine is safe and effective and warned that separating the shots could leave children vulnerable to disease for longer.

Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, filling in for the network’s Dana Perino, asked Bhattacharya, also the acting CDC Director, on Tuesday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, “What would you say to parents who say, ‘Well, now I’m gonna give my kids all these vaccines, but other people are gonna opt out, and my kids are gonna get sick at school?’ What do you say to that?”

“Take a look at the measles vaccine,” Bhattacharya said. “The measles vaccine is a very, very effective vaccine if you wanna keep your kid to not get [sic] measles — which I think is a [sic] admirable thing to do. If you are worried about your kid getting measles at school, then vaccinate your child with the measles vaccine.”

Earlier in the broadcast, Bhattacharya emphasized that he believes Trump’s executive order will “increase the trust” between parents and the government, adding, “The key is a shift in how we talk about it, and we are now partners with parents rather than sort of overlords of parents.”

As of Aug. 7, the CDC had confirmed 2,465 measles cases and 38 outbreaks across the country in 2026, already surpassing the 2,289 infections recorded during all of 2025, which itself marked the highest annual total in more than three decades.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

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