Amid Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to improve healthcare as part of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, there is a growing focus on vaccine transparency.

One of the most common childhood inoculations — the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — has been a requirement for school attendance since its development in the 1970s.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier answered some frequently asked questions regarding the vaccine in a video for Fox News Digital. (See the video at the top of the article.)

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People often ask why the three vaccines are combined, which Saphier said is simply for convenience.

"From a public health standpoint, if the goal is to vaccinate as many children as possible to reach that herd immunity and keep these infections at bay, again, parents are more likely to only bring their child to the pediatrician that one time," the doctor said.

"And on a child, isn't it easier to give one injection as opposed to three separate injections?"

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Saphier also addressed concerns about MMR vaccine side effects, including inflammatory reactions at the site of the injection, where the skin can become red and warm.

Children can also have low-grade fevers and feel irritable or lethargic, which is "likely to happen" even with each individual vaccine – not just when the vaccines are combined.

"The reality is there are always side effects when it comes to any sort of healthcare intervention," she said in the video. "But with vaccines in particular, you can have the more mild side effects, and there are some severe, more rare side effects that are well-documented."

The potential for a link between autism and vaccinations has been a deterrent for many parents when choosing to vaccinate their children, but Saphier said the "overwhelming majority" of "good research" shows no causal link.

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One of the largest studies, conducted in Denmark, found a lower risk of autism in more than 650,000 vaccinated children, the doctor noted.

While the U.S. has a higher incidence of autism compared to other countries, specifically Europe, the doctor revealed that European nations have higher rates of MMR vaccine uptake.

"The signs and symptoms [of autism] start to show around the time we're giving all these vaccines, so it makes sense to kind of think they may be related," she said. 

"And it made sense to do as much research as we can to make sure there isn't a link."

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"But I think we need to be looking really hard at our environment, what we're ingesting, the pollutants, the toxins, everything in big agriculture, big pharma, in our food industry and everything else."

Saphier suggested that a link to autism may be found after diving into the "harmful chemicals" consumed by Americans that other nations do not consume.

The doctor also said that medical agencies — such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics — should be "less stringent" on vaccination schedules, leaving the decision to the parents.

"If parents don't want to give these vaccines when their babies are so little, I think it's OK to have that conversation and let them wait until their child's a little bit older before they head off to kindergarten," said Saphier, who is a mother of three boys.

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"Because maybe at that time, you start to see signs of autism between about 1 to 3 years of age for the most part. So maybe let the parent get their child through that time, and if there aren't signs of autism, then maybe they'll feel better about … being able to vaccinate their children."

"It should be a conversation between the doctor and the patient," she said.

"Unfortunately, during the COVID pandemic, the CDC and a lot of healthcare professionals really took away this conversation." 

"By putting the COVID vaccine and booster for children in the same basket as MMR and some of the other vaccines, when it comes to children, that was the biggest mistake they could have ever [made]," Saphier continued. 

"That has caused more vaccine hesitancy and concern."

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Saphier expressed her hope that the MAHA movement will help identify safety signals in vaccines, which will "give parents the confidence they need to continue with the vaccine programs, because they really can save lives."

Fox News Digital's Khloe Quill contributed reporting.

The tragedies of Los Angeles’ recent fires are suffocating and impossible to wrap my mind around as a born-and-raised California mom who evacuated our forever home at 4 a.m. on Jan. 8. 

I’m heartbroken. I’m livid. I’m praying. I’m guilty of emerging unscathed (so far). I’m vigilantly searching for answers while preparing for the next round of "Particularly Dangerous Event" winds. My own kids are asking me terrifying questions, and I’m answering with a faked "everything will be OK for everyone" confidence that only parents know how to do. 

How did California leadership fail families so egregiously? They traded the time-tested value of responsibility for empty trends of "diversity, equity and inclusion."

I don’t believe in politicizing tragedies – especially of this magnitude – but unfortunately, some tragedies are exacerbated by political motives and actions (or rather, inactions). With some estimates of damages to be upwards of $250 billion and 24 innocent people dead as of this writing, NOW is the time for us to be vigilant in asking questions and planning solutions for our children’s future. 

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I’ll recap just some of California and Los Angeles’ documented priorities for taxpaying citizens over the last several years: 

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Were fires inevitable given the conditions? Of course. But, a lack of responsibility from leaders partnered with DEI-driven priorities failed to mitigate carnage – as shamelessly showcased by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and even the guy who allegedly oversaw the county-wide emergency alert system when it repeatedly alerted 10 million people to "Evacuate Now" by mistake. ("I’m so sorry, I messed up," I heard him say on the radio. At least he admitted it, unlike others.) 

My own teens have a better sense of responsibility and impending consequences than our elected and appointed officials. According to credible reports, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power previously drained the city’s second-largest reservoir near Pacific Palisades and failed to notify county or city fire departments. 

Mayor Karen Bass abandoned the city under her watch and traveled to Africa despite National Weather Service warnings of unprecedented and dangerous fire conditions on Jan. 3. 

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Years of budget cuts in areas that warrant priority – including Newsom reportedly slashing over $100 million from fire preparedness in 2024 – continue to deplete resources and exacerbate potential decimation, like we’re experiencing now. 

Major fires are not unexpected in California. By all evidence, our leaders at the top are making irresponsible choices not rooted in hindsight, current events or fact-based projections. As a mom who constantly reminds my kids to think ahead, I am infuriated.

As parents, we can hold leaders accountable in public forums and call on our representatives to revisit and reverse failing policies. But, more importantly, we must raise our children to understand the seriousness of responsibility, value merit and fear consequences. 

The "there’s no wrong or right" parenting mentality has got to stop. The "you do you" philosophy in schools must end. The obsession with abandoning merit-based standards and skills in education and the workplace – to check boxes based on sexuality, gender and perceived inequalities – must die. Responsibility and accountability are the bedrock for maintaining a free, functioning, and safe society. (It’s one of our foundational principles for creating PragerU Kids.)

California leadership failed families. Blatant irresponsibility and DEI-focused priorities are now proven accomplices to physical, mental and spiritual destruction for hundreds of thousands – with no end in sight. Not on this California mom’s watch. Teach the kids before it’s too late. 

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As the mother of a 10-year-old, I frequently feel the threat of social media creeping its way into his life. So far my husband and I have avoided giving him a phone. His only laptop is a school-issued ChromeBook with prison-tight safety elements and no access to adult or inappropriate sites. 

But after producing the film "The Coddling of the American Mind," I started to realize that I was putting far too much attention on the enemy outside. Inside of our young people’s heads, there is a battleground as well. The book, brilliantly written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, examines those battles and offers strategies and tactics to survive them. 

In making this film we interviewed an array of Gen Z-ers, some of whom were still in college at the time. While it’s normal for anyone to feel a certain level of insecurity when entering college, it seems like today’s college campus creates its own battleground in some of the most personal  areas: Who will be my friends? What activities should I participate in? What classes should I take? 

These common questions now seemed to be loaded with a sense of peril: "Choose the correct peer groups and causes, and you’ll be fine. Otherwise, get ready to be ostracized."

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These sharp students devote so much energy to not getting canceled and proving they have the "correct" world view. That makes them less focused on more important things – such as embracing discomfort and hearing different points of view – that will help them in the "real world."

And in the midst of this battleground, there is the strange presence of "over protection" – administrators and professors go out of their way to help students avoid the very things that will make them stronger. It’s like watching a military weakening its soldiers. 

At a screening of our film at Duke University, I was saddened to hear from a professor there that most kids these days scrub or erase most of their social media posts and pictures upon graduation on the off chance they’ll be dug up and hurt them when it’s time to find employment. 

But I also completely understood – your past is not just captured in Polaroids and yearbooks anymore. A past version of you that was just being a silly kid or experimenting, could assassinate your future self’s reputation. But by engaging in self-censorship, they are putting crucial parts of their lives on the cutting room floor before they’ve really lived life. 

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So making this film forced me to shift my focus from the impending social media threat looming over our child and his friends to paying closer attention to how he thinks, what bothers him and how he handles disagreement. 

It also forced me to examine how my own mind works. After all, we largely teach our kids by example and if I’m vulnerable to common cognitive distortions, I have to practice how I handle them. Anxiety, paranoia, catastrophizing – these are not age-specific maladies, but challenges we all face at some point. And they typically don’t just go away for most people. 

We must put our negative thoughts on trial. The prosecuting attorney has to prove everything is as bad as your mind tells itself it is. Where is the evidence that I am a loser overall because I didn’t get one gig? Or that this friend hates me now because she was slow to respond to my last text (welcome to my personal mind reading and catastrophizing!).

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Social media is an ever-evolving threat and I see little value in it for young kids. But it’s unavoidable. Even if our son doesn’t get a phone until he’s 15, he is surrounded by kids who have them. He’s surrounded by older siblings to those friends who will inevitably show him something disturbing. He is living in a culture that pushes political agendas in materials, such as children’s books and cartoons, that should remain innocent. 

My maternal instinct to protect him from everything is not only completely unrealistic, it will hurt him in the long run. My time as a mother is much better spent equipping him with the skill of crossing a busy road by himself rather than hovering my hand over his until we get to the other side.