963 - Separating the MMR Vaccine?
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
Since 1971, combination mumps, measles, and rubella vaccines have protected American children against life-threatening infection. Recent calls to split the MMR vaccines into three separate injections could unravel decades of progress. In this episode: William Moss details the history of MMR vaccines and the public health dangers posed by changing immunization recommendations without scientific justification to do so.
Guests:
Dr. William Moss, MPH, is an infectious disease specialist and the executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Host:
Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Show links and related content:
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Acting CDC director calls for MMR vaccine to be broken up into three shots—STAT
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What to Know About MMR and MMRV Vaccines—Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
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The MMR vaccines has been combined for decades… and for good reason—@johnshopkinssph via Instagram
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Vaccines 101: Understanding the Vaccines on the Childhood Vaccination Schedule—Public Health On Call (March 2025)
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Transcript
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| 1:09.1 | It's on Zy Smith Rogers. |
| 1:26.2 | Today, a look at a recent government pronouncement that the safe and effective MMR vaccine for children be broken up into three separate shots for measles, mumps, and rebella, or monovalent shots that are not available in the U.S. |
| 1:29.4 | Dr. William Moss, a Johns Hopkins vaccine expert, |
| 1:35.1 | talks to Stephanie Desmond about how this discussion, based in part on decades-old discredited information, could further undermine confidence in routine immunization. Let's listen. |
| 1:41.4 | Bill Moss, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. |
| 1:45.5 | So today I wanted to talk about what seems to be a new conversation, but it's really an old |
| 1:51.2 | conversation. President Trump and now the acting CDC director are calling for the MMR shots, |
| 1:58.5 | the measles, mumps, rebella shots, to be split into individual doses. |
| 2:04.5 | And for 50 years or so, children have been given this combination vaccine that has worked really |
... |
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