Doctors don’t inject kids with soda bottle’s worth of vaccines. Trump’s claim is Pants on Fire.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order recommending that children be routinely vaccinated for 11 diseases rather than the 18 formerly advised. 

Announcing the order at an Aug. 10 Oval Office event, Trump repeated his opinion that American children receive too many shots, and that this could be putting them in danger.

Trump falsely compared the amount of vaccine fluid being injected into children with common consumer products. 

“And I saw this early on, and I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination thing, looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body,” Trump said. At other times during his remarks, he compared the amount of vaccines injected into children with a “large glass” or even “seemingly … gallons.”

Medical experts said such large amounts of fluid are never injected into a child at one time. A typical immunization includes half a milliliter (or mL) to 1 mL of fluid. The vast majority of shots are 0.5 mL or less. That’s about one-tenth of a teaspoon. 

By comparison, a standard plastic, single-serve bottle of soda holds 591 mL. So any single vaccination contains about one one-thousandth of the fluid a soda bottle holds.

Put another way, it would take over 1,000 vaccine doses to fill a single 20-ounce soda bottle. 

“The volume comparison is off by a very large margin,” said Dr. Matthew B. Laurens, a professor of pediatrics, medicine and pathology and an associate director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health. “No routinely administered childhood vaccine comes remotely close to 591 mL in a single dose.”

The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

Combination vaccines reduce the fluid amount

Many childhood vaccines are administered in a child’s first two years of life to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases. These vaccinations are frequently spread out across several doses and scheduled to create the most protective immune response.

For efficacy and convenience, a doctor may recommend a child receive multiple doses in a single visit. That doesn’t necessarily mean several shots, though. 

Frequently these doses are offered in combination vaccines, allowing parents of young children to opt for fewer injections at each visit. Vaxelis, for example, combines doses of diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, Hib and hepatitis B immunizations into a single shot. 

Combination vaccines still have 0.5mL of liquid. 

Based on the 2024 vaccine schedule, a baby at the two-month appointment could receive all six recommended vaccine doses in two injections and one oral administration of drops, for example. That would equal 1 mL of injections in that visit.

Under that same pre-Trump schedule, it was possible, with the maximum use of combination vaccines, for a 2-year-old to be fully vaccinated with as few as 12 injections and some oral drops. That could have amounted to up to 19 or 20 injections, when vaccines for COVID-19, flu and RSV were included.

In his executive order, Trump seeks to split up combination vaccines into multiple shots. Paradoxically, this could mean more fluid being injected into a child’s body over time. 

In his remarks, and in the executive order, Trump specifically targeted the measles, mumps and rubella (or MMR) vaccine, which in the U.S. is only available as a single shot. Children receive two doses of the MMR vaccine. 

“If you separate it to its component parts, you make a two-dose vaccine a six-dose vaccine with no advantage,” said Dr. Paul Offit, pediatric infectious disease doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It doesn’t make it safer. It doesn’t make it more effective. It just means more shots.” 

Even if a parent wanted to have each vaccine dose administered in a separate syringe, the collective amount of fluid wouldn’t come close to the amount of liquid Trump said. 

The 2024 vaccine schedule rarely recommends more than six doses in a single visit (often given in combination). If a child received 10 separate vaccine injections in one appointment, it would still total a teaspoon’s worth of liquid.

Our ruling

Trump said there are vaccines the size of a “bottle of soda … poured into a little child’s body.”

Such a large amount of fluid is never injected into a child during vaccination — neither during one injection nor during all injections combined. A typical immunization includes 0.5 mL of fluid. A standard 20-ounce plastic, single-serve bottle of soda holds 591 mL of liquid. It would take over 1,000 vaccine doses to fill that bottle. 

We rate this statement Pants on Fire!