Public confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has collapsed, a poll shows

Americans are losing confidence in the country’s health agencies. New KFF poll He appears People’s trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reached an unprecedented low since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The poll offers a glimpse into how Americans feel about the nation’s public health agencies since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and since his controversial pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to take the reins of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The poll found that only half of Americans still trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide reliable information about vaccines — far below the level of people’s trust in their doctors or other health organizations. The majority also said they disapproved of Kennedy’s job performance, and that they disagreed with the Trump administration’s decision to link autism to women who take acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy despite a lack of evidence.

Confidence declines

For the poll, KFF polled a nationally representative sample of more than 1,300 American adults online and by phone, and was conducted a day after Trump and Kennedy were widely criticized. press conference Last month he claims that using Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism.

Only 18% of survey respondents expressed a “great deal” of confidence in vaccine information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while another 32% said they had a “fair amount” of confidence. These numbers represent a sharp decline in just a matter of months: A previous poll conducted in April of this year showed that 59% of people said they trusted the CDC to some extent. However, trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been waning: In 2023, 63% of people said they trusted the CDC at least somewhat. When considering similar polls assessing public trust in the CDC as a whole, this is the lowest level of trust in the agency since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, according to KFF.

Conversely, a large majority of people (83%) still trust their personal doctor to provide them with reliable vaccine information, while nearly two-thirds of people surveyed also trust the American Medical Association (64%) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (69%) to do the same. About 80% of Americans also agreed that public schools should require some vaccines for students, including 75% of Republicans.

RFK Jr. Impact

The new poll chimes in Other recent surveys Which indicates that Kennedy is unpopular with most Americans.

About 59% of respondents disapproved of his overall job performance, while 62% disapproved of how he handled vaccine policy. Kennedy has a long history of vaccine skepticism, and since being appointed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he has made several moves that seemed poised to undermine vaccine policy and challenge decades of accepted science — actions that helped fuel the implosion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Earlier this summer, former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Monarrez was fired after she allegedly to reject To approve recommendations made by a panel of Kennedy picks to inform the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine policies, many of whom have their own record of attacking the safety of vaccines and expressing skepticism. After her departure, Jim O’Neill, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another Kennedy supporter, took over the position. Since he called To dismantle the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, a long-standing goal of the anti-vaccination movement.

The KFF poll also found that most Americans (77%) have heard of Trump’s claim that Tylenol use increases the risk of autism. But only a minority said this claim was “definitely true” (4%), while 30% said it was “probably true.” About 35% said the claim was “definitely false” and another 30% said it was “probably false.” Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, belief in this claim was highly partisan, the poll found, with Republicans most likely to give some credence to the idea. Scientists No concrete evidence has been found Of a link between Tylenol and autism, critics said the President and Kennedy’s claims were based on weak and mixed evidence, at best.

There are many reasons why Americans’ trust in the CDC and other health agencies has ebbed and flowed over time, but the poll reflects Kennedy’s meteoric rise and his sweeping overhaul of the nation’s public health agencies’ approach to vaccines and children’s health.