in effect
Executive Order 14407, signed May 29, 2026, directs federal health agencies to review and potentially revise the U.S. childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule to bring it more in line with the schedules used by other developed countries. It follows a December 2025 presidential memorandum that commissioned a scientific assessment by the Department of Health and Human Services comparing U.S. vaccine recommendations to those of peer nations.
The CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) are directed to review the HHS scientific assessment alongside current clinical data and take steps to update the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule where appropriate, with an emphasis on giving parents and doctors more flexibility in timing and sequencing. The HHS scientific assessment — which found that the U.S. recommends more childhood vaccine doses than any peer nation, and more than twice as many doses as some European countries — is designated a guiding resource for the federal government. All vaccines that remain on any category of the updated ACIP schedule must continue to be covered without cost-sharing by private insurers and by Medicaid, CHIP, and the Vaccines for Children Program. State governments will be notified of the order’s policies and given access to the scientific assessment to inform their own state-level vaccination laws, though the order does not require states to change anything.
Federal health agencies — primarily CDC, ACIP, and HHS — are required to act: reviewing the schedule and aligning agency regulations, funding, and coverage decisions with whatever schedule ACIP ultimately adopts. Private insurers, Medicaid, CHIP, and the Vaccines for Children Program must maintain coverage for any vaccine that appears on the revised schedule. Parents and physicians may see practical changes if ACIP revises which vaccines are routinely recommended or adjusts the recommended timing, though the order does not itself remove any vaccine from availability.