Have RFK and MAHA really changed American views on vaccines?

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts Hello and thanks for downloading the More or Less Podcast, with a program that looks at the numbers in the news, in life and in surveys. Yeah, often they're from surveys. I'm Charlotte McDonald. Vaccine policy in the US is something of an ideological battleground. Social Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a vaccine skeptic. And since taking office, he has attempted to remake US vaccine policy. In March, a judge blocked his proposal to cut the number of jabs that are recommended for kids. At the same time, last year saw the worst measles outbreak in the US in decades. There were more than 2,000 cases last year and three people died. There have been more than 1,500 cases so far in 2026. There's a lot going on, so it's possible the public's views on vaccination are shifting. Then, on the 14th of April, a new poll published by online news site Politico added a big claim into the mix. Here's the article's headline. More Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it, Politico poll finds. What is that what the survey actually found? It's really important that anytime you see a poll or a survey data point that is an outlier, that you pause. And that's exactly what I did with this. This is David Higgins, a pediatrician and public health assistant professor who writes a sub-stack called Community Immunity. I immediately thought, wow, that seems out of step with other recent surveys and polls. David's not wrong. The idea that more Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it would represent a sizeable shift in US public opinion. For example, a Reuters Ipsos poll in February found that 84% of respondents said vaccines for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella are safe for children. A Pew poll from November found that 84% of Americans thought the benefits of the MMR jab outweighed the risks. A slight fall from 88% in 2023. So we can say with confidence that we have not seen a drastic decline in confidence in vaccines. We have not fallen off a cliff of vaccine confidence. So what's going on with the Politico poll that found that more Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it? That statement comes from a specific question in this poll and this question asked people. Which of the following comes closest to your view? The science on vaccines is clear and it is damaging to question it. Or the facts on vaccines are still up for debate and it's damaging to enforce their uptake. In the Politico poll, 39% of respondents indicated their view was closer to the first statement. But the science on vaccines is clear and it is damaging to question it. 46% were closest to the second. The facts on vaccines are still up for debate and it is damaging to enforce their uptake. Hence the headline that more Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it. But David is not convinced. I read this question and I thought this question is very difficult to interpret. Now here's the problem. In this question, a survey respondent is not being asked about one thing. They are not being asked simply about the safety of vaccines or their views on vaccines. They are being asked about four different things. One, is the science clear on vaccines? Two, is it damaging to question vaccine science? Three, are the facts on vaccines still up for debate? And four, is it damaging to enforce vaccine uptake? So in this one question, there are four different beliefs about vaccines all bundled into a binary choice. I mean, questions one and three are pretty close. But you get the picture. These overlapping questions make it very hard to know exactly which part of the question is driving the answer. I thought, how would I answer this question? And I had a hard time answering it myself. I believe the science on vaccines is clear. But I don't actually think it's damaging to question or debate the science of vaccines when done in good faith. In fact, that's a part of good science and good vaccine policymaking. And then the question also talks about whether it's damaging to enforce vaccine uptake. And my first thought is that if vaccine uptake is enforced in an overly harsh way, that actually can backfire and decrease uptake. So even though I am a champion for vaccines and I recommend vaccines every day to my patients in clinic, then I would be somewhere in the middle of this question. The point here is the article headline makes a specific claim about vaccine safety seemingly on the basis of this question. But it's very hard to know which part of it is driving that response. Is it concerns about vaccine safety or vaccine science or the enforcement of vaccine uptake or personal freedom? One more thing to consider in some of these questions, it's not clear which vaccines we're talking about. We've known for several years that the attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines are very different than some other vaccines like say those for measles. And the challenge is when a person is asked about whether they think vaccines are safe. If in their mind they're thinking about the COVID-19 vaccine, they may have very strong views and may answer that question very differently than they would for other vaccines. So that makes it difficult sometimes to tell if shifting attitudes about vaccines are shifting attitudes toward all vaccines or shifting attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines that are then appearing in the data to show shifting attitudes toward all vaccines. Politico put a link to the full survey data in their article. The strange thing is that the survey also asked a question which seems to more directly test people's opinions on vaccine safety. Asked to pick one option, 26% of respondents said Vaccine risks are overblown by skeptics and contribute to dangerous vaccine hesitancy. And 37% said Vaccine risks are very rare and the benefits of vaccination far outweigh them for most people. If you categorise both groups as trusting vaccine safety, which isn't much of a leap, it puts 63% of Americans in that group, a clear majority. After this, 15% said Vaccine risks are not as rare as public health experts claim. And just 10% of respondents took this option. Vaccine risks are significant and enforcing vaccines is dangerous. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, David isn't sure about this question either. I worry that with that question, they made a similar mistake, right? Again, because you're asking about multiple different things. These questions also have a lot of moving parts. And again, the actual vaccine involved is unclear. So it's hard to know what's driving the answers. So I hesitate to use this data point to say that the headline question is inconsistent. Although it sure does look like it's challenges the interpretation. We asked Politico whether they could justify the headline on their article. And a day later, they changed it. It now says Many Americans expressed doubt about vaccines, Politico poll finds. I don't think anyone can disagree with that. They added a note to the article saying the previous headline was an editing error. Let's just hope all the people who saw the headline and post about it on social media got the memo. Thanks to Dr David Higgins, friend of the program. Mike Wendling sent us this story. If you've seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at email more or less at bbc.co.uk Until next week. Goodbye.