“In many cases, we were requiring 72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children, including giving the hepatitis B shot to infants and newborns, on top of many other vaccinations... However, this updated recommendation finally aligns the United States with other advanced and developed nations around the world.”

Oval Office remarks on signing the childhood vaccine executive order

The 72 figure counts in a way no schedule does. It appears to count combination vaccines as separate jabs and to include every yearly COVID and influenza shot given through age 18, and the American Academy of Pediatrics puts about 30 vaccinations as more accurate. On the alignment half, the order sets a recommendation covering 11 diseases, down from the current 17. Denmark recommends vaccines against 10 diseases and many European countries recommend 15 or more, so 11 sits near the bottom of peer schedules rather than in line with them.

The first half of the claim has a basis, and it is the claim's best defence. A Health and Human Services assessment, as summarised by the Congressional Research Service, found the prior schedule to be a global outlier among developed nations in both the number of diseases addressed and the total number of recommended doses. What the order did was not to align that outlier but to move past the peer range in the other direction. The order also re-imposed a schedule change that a federal court had stayed in March 2026 after the American Academy of Pediatrics sued.