Washington — Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Sunday that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as MMR, is “not a lethal vaccine,” despite President Trump’s claims in recent days.
“No, the MMR vaccine is not a lethal vaccine,” Oz said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
While the Trump administration has been encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against measles as cases have risen to their highest levels in 35 years, an executive order signed by Mr. Trump earlier this month suggested that the MMR vaccine should be given as three separate shots. During the executive order signing, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that the MMR vaccine, if not separated, could be “lethal.” The vaccines are not currently on the market in the U.S. as separate shots.
“Together there could be a possibility they are quite lethal,” Mr. Trump said. “Separately it looks like they are not at all lethal, but just very effective.”
Oz stressed on Sunday that the president wants Americans “to get vaccinated as their doctors recommend, as long as they have a choice in the matter.”
“We want patients to get the treatments that their doctors are recommending to them, but we also want parents to have the autonomy to decide what their kids receive,” Oz said.
Oz added that “the challenge we’re running into is that many states have not clarified that, and actually, it’s harder for parents to ask these difficult questions,” he claimed.
The CMS administrator said the MMR vaccine is offered separately in other countries. And he argued that the discussion “comes back to a much more fundamental issue” of whether parents “have the right to ask questions.”
“The request of the president is to make sure that states offer parents either eligibility because of religious beliefs or other reasons why they may not want to have their kids take all the vaccines in order,” he said.
The comments come after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new figures last week that show 92.4% of the nation’s kindergarteners were vaccinated against measles during the 2025-2026 school year, down from 95.2% during the 2019–2020 school year. The most recent figures fall below the 95% herd immunity threshold.
