Poll: Most Americans confident in safety of routine childhood vaccines

Most adults remain confident in the safety of long-standing childhood vaccines, though people’s views of the COVID-19 vaccine are heavily polarized, according to a new poll from health research organization KFF.  

More than 80 percent of American respondents said they’re “very” or “somewhat” confident that the polio vaccine and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine are safe for kids. Those views were somewhat partisan, with Republican respondents being 79 percent confident in the polio vaccine and 77 percent in the MMR one, compared with 87 percent for polio and 91 percent for MMR among Democrats. 

Even self-described supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement — which has often been associated with vaccine skepticism — said they have confidence in the safety of MMR and polio vaccines.  

A smaller majority of Republicans, 56 percent, said they are confident in the safety of the flu shot, compared with 83 percent of Democrats. 

But the partisan divide was much more pronounced with the COVID-19 vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine. 

While half of respondents overall said they are confident the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for children, just 21 percent of Republicans expressed those views, compared with 77 percent of Democrats. 

Only 28 percent of MAHA supporters said they are confident in the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children. 

When asked about the hepatitis B vaccine, 88 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans said they thought the shots were safe.  

The Trump administration is trying to remove the universal recommendation that all children get vaccinated at birth against hepatitis B, though the effort has been blocked by a federal court. 

An executive order signed by President Trump in August called for the reduction in the number of diseases targeted by routine childhood vaccination from 17 to 11, and it called for the MMR vaccines to be administered as separate vaccines, among other directives. 

Trump falsely said the combined MMR vaccine is “lethal” and that spacing out and separating doses of childhood vaccines would reduce autism rates.  

There is no evidence to support his claims, but the poll found about half of parents incorrectly believe children are healthier when vaccines are spaced out and they do not get multiple shots in one visit. 

The survey was conducted online and by phone from Sept. 16-21. Researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,328 adults; the margin of error was 3 percentage points, and potentially higher for some subgroups.