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March 17, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Americans\u2019 trust in federal vaccine recommendations declines markedly under Trump<\/p>\n One in three Americans trust childhood vaccine guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics more than the CDC\u2019s recommendations, a new poll finds<\/p>\n By Claire Cameron edited by Tanya Lewis<\/span><\/p>\n Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Just six in 10 Americans trust the federal government\u2019s childhood vaccine recommendations, a new poll finds. That marks a notable drop from June 2025, when 71 percent of poll respondents said they trusted the government\u2019s vaccine guidance. The greatest decline was among Democrats\u2014from 81 percent to 66 percent\u2014although Republicans\u2019 and Independents\u2019 trust also waned.<\/p>\n About one in three people polled by Ipsos and Axios said they have more confidence in vaccine guidelines provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), an independent medical group, than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AAP has been sharply critical of the Trump administration\u2019s sweeping changes to U.S. vaccine policy over the last year. Just 8 percent of survey respondents said they prefer guidance from the CDC, which has historically set vaccine policy for the country.<\/p>\n Since President Donald Trump\u2019s second term began, federal health officials have rolled back recommendations for vaccines that protect against COVID, hepatitis B, meningococcal meningitis, rotavirus, and more. At the same time, the Trump administration\u2019s health and human services secretary and long-time vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., dismantled and replaced the members of a key vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s encouraging, the fact that the majority of folks are listening to health professionals, but it\u2019s discouraging, the fact that there\u2019s a chorus of opinions now instead of a singular voice,\u201d says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. That\u2019s a problem, he says, because it could harm efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people are confused,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The poll comes a day after the AAP and five other independent medical groups won a legal challenge against the Trump administration\u2019s overhaul of the country\u2019s childhood vaccine recommendations and replacement of ACIP members. The Department of Health and Human Services has said that it will seek to overturn the decision.<\/p>\n The AAP and other public health experts say that the Trump administration\u2019s actions endanger children and other vulnerable populations\u2019 lives, especially as cases of infectious diseases that are preventable with vaccines such as measles continue to rise. In the new poll, an increasing share of Americans said they were worried about measles\u2014from 18 percent expressing concern in December 2024 to 36 percent in March of this year, although Democrats were more likely to view measles as a risk than Republicans or Independents. The past year has seen the highest rates of measles since before the disease was eradicated in 2000, and the country may already have lost its measles-free status. (The Pan American Health Organization is expected to make a decision on the status at a meeting next month.)<\/p>\n The poll underscores warnings from public health experts that the Trump administration\u2019s changes to vaccine policy would erode trust in federal health agencies, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University. \u201cThis loss of trust has created confusion for parents who, in the midst of deadly outbreaks, have had to navigate vaccine decisions without a clear source of trusted information,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Lauren Young contributed to the reporting for this story.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 17, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Americans\u2019 trust in federal vaccine recommendations declines markedly under Trump One in three Americans trust childhood vaccine guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics more than the CDC\u2019s recommendations, a new poll finds By Claire Cameron edited by Tanya Lewis Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[540,11923,7768,23859,5355,81,1876,2133],"class_list":{"0":"post-46965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-americans","9":"tag-cdcs","10":"tag-declines","11":"tag-markedly","12":"tag-recommendations","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-trust","15":"tag-vaccine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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