Mississippi Pushes Back as Federal Government Moves to Scale Back Childhood Vaccines

Mississippi Pushes Back as Federal Government Moves to Scale Back Childhood Vaccines

JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi health officials are pushing back against major changes to the nation’s childhood vaccine recommendations, signaling that the state may continue recommending some vaccinations even as federal officials move toward a dramatically reduced schedule.

The dispute comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order this month calling for significant changes to childhood vaccination recommendations, including reducing the number of diseases for which vaccines are routinely recommended and pursuing changes to how some vaccines are administered.

The administration says the changes are intended to give parents greater flexibility and bring the United States closer to vaccination practices in some other developed countries.

But medical organizations and public health officials across the country have raised concerns that changing the longstanding schedule could leave children vulnerable to preventable diseases and create confusion for parents.

Mississippi health officials are among those taking a more cautious approach.

Mississippi has already indicated it will continue recommending certain childhood vaccinations even when federal recommendations change.

Earlier this year, Mississippi officials said the state would continue recommending that newborns universally receive the hepatitis B vaccine despite federal changes that removed the universal birth-dose recommendation.

That puts Mississippi in the unusual position of maintaining some more aggressive vaccination recommendations than the federal government.

Mississippi law also continues to require several vaccinations for children attending school, Head Start programs and daycare.

Those include vaccines protecting against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella, polio, hepatitis B, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

The Trump administration’s latest executive order calls for reducing the number of diseases included in the routine childhood vaccination schedule.

It also calls for separating the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, commonly known as MMR, into individual vaccines.

Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are not currently available in the United States, meaning such a change could not immediately be implemented.

The administration has argued that parents should have more control over childhood vaccination decisions and has directed federal officials to examine state vaccination requirements and religious exemptions.

Major medical organizations have strongly criticized the changes, arguing that the existing childhood vaccination schedule is supported by decades of research.

For years, Mississippi maintained some of the highest childhood vaccination rates in the United States, largely because the state had some of the nation’s strictest vaccination requirements.

That changed following a 2023 federal court ruling that resulted in Mississippi allowing religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements.

Since then, the number of exemptions has increased and overall childhood vaccination coverage has declined.

During the 2025-26 school year, approximately 97.2% of Mississippi kindergarten students had received all vaccinations required for school entry, according to state health data. That’s down from approximately 97.6% the previous year.

Mississippi health officials have warned that declining vaccination rates could eventually allow highly contagious diseases to spread more easily, and the state experienced a significant increase in pertussis, recording its first death from the disease in more than a decade.

Mississippi’s debate is unfolding as childhood vaccination rates decline nationwide. New federal data released this week showed vaccination coverage among American kindergarten students fell again during the 2025-26 school year, with approximately 92.4% of kindergartners vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, below the roughly 95% coverage public health experts generally consider necessary to prevent sustained measles outbreaks.

The percentage of kindergarten students receiving exemptions from vaccination requirements reached a record 4.2% nationwide, and the United States is also experiencing its largest measles outbreak in decades.

The federal government establishes national vaccine recommendations, but states have significant authority over vaccination requirements for schools and childcare facilities, meaning the Trump administration’s changes don’t necessarily force Mississippi to abandon its existing requirements.

For Mississippi, the issue is particularly complicated. The state spent decades building one of the highest childhood vaccination rates in the country, and as vaccination rates decline and federal policy moves in a different direction, Mississippi health officials appear determined not to abandon the state’s longstanding approach without evidence that doing so is safe.