Public trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is declining and has fallen to its lowest level since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study. voting Released from KFF on Thursday.
These findings reflect the damage done by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s significant changes to federal vaccine policy, such as revising the childhood vaccination schedule, reducing recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines, replacing every member of the vaccine advisory panel and firing the CDC director.
Half of the public now says they have either a “very great” or “fair amount” of trust in the CDC to provide reliable vaccine information, down from 57 percent in July and 63 percent in September 2023.
However, doctors remain the most trusted source of information. More than 60 percent of respondents said they trust vaccine information from the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), respectively.
Both groups have been publicly critical of Kennedy’s vaccine moves and were among the organizations that removed their experts from workgroups that helped inform recommendations from the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
“It is encouraging, far from the norm, that as trust in our nation’s scientific agencies continues to wane, the public trusts the professional organizations that have stepped forward,” Drew Altman, KFF president and CEO, said in a statement.
Yet trust in sources of vaccine information remains largely biased.
According to the survey, 64 percent of Democrats said they were most likely to trust the CDC on vaccines, but that number dropped by 24 percentage points after 2023.
Only 39 percent of Republicans said they trust the CDC’s vaccine information, but 67 percent said they trust Kennedy.
Regarding Kennedy himself, the poll found that a majority of the public disapproved of his overall job performance as well as his handling of vaccine policy.
Only four in ten adults said they “strongly” or “somewhat” approved of the way Kennedy handled his job as Secretary of HHS, while 59 percent said they either “somewhat” or “strongly” disapproved of his job performance.
The poll found similar levels of approval over Kennedy’s handling of vaccine policy. About four in ten adults said they approved of it, while six in ten disapproved.
The survey was launched on September 23, the day after Kennedy, President Trump and other health officials warned that Tylenol during pregnancy It may cause autism in children, despite no new evidence proving direct causation.
Studies are mixed, and most experts say more research is needed. Acetaminophen is considered one of the only safe painkillers to take during pregnancy when used appropriately, and not taking it, especially to treat fever, may pose a risk to the fetus.
The survey found that three quarters of the public had heard the claim, and many said they were not sure it was true.
While only 4 percent said the claim was “definitely true”, 60 percent – including 64 percent of parents – said it was either “probably true” or “probably false”. Majorities of women, including women under 50, Republicans, independents, and Republican women all expressed uncertainty about the validity of the claim.
About a third of the public said the claim was “definitely false”.
Like many other findings, the survey found that public perception regarding acetaminophen autism claims is closely linked to bias. Most Republicans, including more than half of Republican women, said this was either “probably” or “definitely true.”
Only 12 percent of Republicans said the claim is “definitely false”, while 59 percent of Democrats said it is false.
The survey reached 1,344 people. The margin of sampling error across the entire sample was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
