Americans’ 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’s recommendations, a new poll finds
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
A recent survey reveals that only 60% of Americans trust the federal government’s guidelines on childhood vaccines, a significant decrease from 71% in June 2025. The decline in trust is most pronounced among Democrats, falling from 81% to 66%, with Republicans and Independents also showing decreased confidence.
The poll, conducted by Ipsos and Axios, indicates that one-third of respondents have greater confidence in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for vaccine guidance. The AAP has been openly critical of the Trump administration’s recent changes to vaccine policies. Notably, only 8% of participants favor the CDC’s guidelines, which have historically shaped national vaccine policies.
Since the start of Donald Trump’s second term, there have been significant rollbacks in vaccine recommendations by federal health officials, affecting vaccines for COVID, hepatitis B, meningococcal meningitis, rotavirus, and others. Additionally, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a known vaccine skeptic, has led efforts to replace members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
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“It’s encouraging, the fact that the majority of folks are listening to health professionals, but it’s discouraging, the fact that there’s a chorus of opinions now instead of a singular voice,” says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. That’s a problem, he says, because it could harm efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated.
“I think people are confused,” he says.
The poll comes a day after the AAP and five other independent medical groups won a legal challenge against the Trump administration’s overhaul of the country’s 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.
The AAP and other public health experts say that the Trump administration’s actions endanger children and other vulnerable populations’ 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—from 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.)
The poll underscores warnings from public health experts that the Trump administration’s changes to vaccine policy would erode trust in federal health agencies, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University. “This 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,” she says.
Lauren Young contributed to the reporting for this story.
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