President Trump is ordering a review of all childhood vaccines, further kindling an already fierce debate just hours after a divided federal committee voted to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for most infants on the day they are born.

In a fact sheet released late Friday, the White House announced that Mr. Trump has signed a presidential memorandum ordering his administration to begin a process of aligning U.S. core childhood vaccine recommendations “with best practices from peer, developed countries.”

Calling America “a high outlier in the number of vaccinations recommended for all children,” the memorandum states that, when he took office, the country recommended vaccinating all children for 18 diseases compared to 15 in Germany, 14 in Japan and just 10 in Denmark.

The secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are directed “to review best practices from peer, developed countries for core childhood vaccination recommendations — vaccines recommended for all children — and the scientific evidence that informs those best practices,” the memo says.

If those officials “determine that those best practices are superior to current domestic recommendations, they are directed to update the United States core childhood vaccine schedule to align with such scientific evidence and best practices from peer, developed countries while preserving access to vaccines currently available to Americans.”

Hours earlier, a vaccine panel assembled by Mr. Kennedy had roiled the American medical community with its long-anticipated decision to recommend that the initial dose of the hepatitis B vaccine be postponed for most infants until they reach at least 2 months of age.

Committee members supporting the change said the risk of hepatitis infection for most babies is very low and raised concern about administering it without need. The vice chairman, Dr. Robert Malone, was quoted citing concern about the cumulative effect of the vaccine being administered in combination with many other vaccines.

However, one dissenting member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP,  was quoted as warning before the vote: “We will see more children and more adolescents and adults infected with hepatitis B.”

The non-profit Hepatitis B Foundation issued a statement saying many of the presentations heard by the panel  showed “one-sided data,” and that several points made by committee members “clearly showed that they have a very specific agenda.”  Many of the panel’s members were hand-picked by Mr. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, who had fired the entire 17-member panel shortly after being confirmed as secretary.

But Mr. Trump welcomed the panel’s move in a post on his Truth Social account Friday, describing it as “a very good decision,” and went on to argue that healthy American babies receive “far more” vaccinations than in other countries “and far more than is necessary. In fact, it is ridiculous!”

He wrote that he has directed HHS “to ‘FAST TRACK’ a comprehensive evaluation of Vaccine Schedules from other Countries around the World, and better align the U.S. Vaccine Schedule, so it is finally rooted in the Gold Standard of Science and COMMON SENSE!”

The American Academy of Pediatrics defended the current vaccine schedule for children in a recent public statement, saying, “There is robust evidence to support the safety, effectiveness and necessity of U.S. vaccine recommendations.”

The statement argues that variations in vaccine schedules among countries can be attributed to the uneven prevalence of certain diseases, the cost effectiveness of prevention versus treatment for certain diseases, and the most effective ways of administering them.

“We don’t follow Denmark’s vaccine recommendations because we don’t live in Denmark. Children in the United States are at risk of different diseases than children in other countries,” says a member of the academy’s Committee on Infectious Diseases, Jose Romero, who is quoted in the statement.

The statement points to a 2024 CDC report finding that, among children born in America between 1994 and 2023, “routine childhood vaccinations will have prevented approximately 508 million lifetime cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, resulting in direct savings of $540 billion and societal savings of $2.7 trillion.”