Americans’ trust in the federal government’s recommendations for childhood vaccines has fallen in recent months, according to a new Axios/Ipsos survey released a day after a federal judge blocked changes made to vaccine policies by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Axios/Ipsos American Health Index found that 6 in 10 surveyed Americans trust the government’s guidance when it comes to childhood vaccinations, an 11-point drop from last June, when 71 percent expressed trust.
Trust fell most sharply among Democrats from 81 percent to 66 percent, but it also saw a 6-point decline among Republicans, from 69 percent to 63 percent. Trust among independents shrank from 65 percent to 58 percent between June and March.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reduced the number of recommended shots for kids from 17 to 11 earlier this year as part of Kennedy’s push to reshape health care policy to align with his “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
The move was met with swift criticism, including from experts who warned it could lead to a resurgence in preventable diseases by undermining public confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
About one-third of Americans expressed more confidence in the guidelines coming from the American Academy of Pediatrics than in those from the CDC, compared with 8 percent who said the opposite, according to the survey. Twenty-three percent of respondents expressed equal confidence in both sources, while 16 percent said they were not confident in either source.
The survey also underscored uncertainty about whether the guidance from federal health agencies more reflected the Trump administration’s views rather than career scientists, with an even 30 percent split on either side. A plurality of respondents (38 percent) said they were unsure.
In addition to blocking vaccine changes, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy also ruled that Kennedy likely violated federal law when he fired 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) last year and replaced them with handpicked members.
Murphy’s order invalidated all of the decisions made by the reshaped advisory panel, which included no longer recommending the hepatitis B vaccine at birth or the COVID-19 vaccine for those 6 months and older, among others.
The Axios/Ipsos American Health Index was conducted from March 6 to March 9 among 1,225 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
