More Americans Have Doubts About Value of Childhood Vaccinations
- by Carolyn Hendler, JD
- Published
- Vaccines
According to a Gallup survey conducted in July 2024, there is growing skepticism in the United States about the value of the government’s recommended childhood vaccination schedule. The survey showed that only 40 percent of adults in the U.S. agreed that it is “extremely important” for parents to vaccinate their children. This represents a steep decline from 2019 and 2001, when 58 percent and 64 percent of adults, respectively, agreed with the statement regarding the importance of vaccinating children.1
About 17 percent of adults in the U.S. agreed that it is “somewhat important” that parents get their children vaccinated, while five percent agreed that it is “not very important” and seven percent said it is, “not at all important.”2 The telephone survey, which had a +/- margin of four points, asked 1,010 adults in the country during July 1-21, 2024 their opinions about vaccination.3 4
The largest change in vaccine confidence and importance was found among Republican and Republican-leaning Independents, for which there was a 50 percent increase in skepticism about the value of childhood vaccinations. Only 26 percent of this group agreed that it is “extremely important” to get children vaccinated, down from 52 percent in 2019 and 2015.5
This is in sharp contrast to Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents who found 63 percent agreeing that vaccinating children is “extremely important,” down from 67 percent in 2019 and up from 59 percent in 2015.6 Eight percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters said its “not very important” to get their children vaccinated and 11 percent of the same group agreed “it is not important at all” for children to be vaccinated.7
Concern That Vaccines are More Dangerous Than Diseases
Approximately 31 percent of Republicans believe that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent, up from 12 percent in 2019 and six percent in 2001. Only five percent of Democrats agreed with this statement.8The survey authors point out that polling during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 showed that 19 percent of Republican parents intended to give their young children a COVID shot, while 90 percent of Democrats said they planned on giving their young children a COVID shot.
The authors suggest that parents’ doubt about the safety, effectiveness and necessity of COVID shots for children has now extended to other childhood vaccines.9
All Americans Less Likely to Support Vaccine Mandates
In 2024, all Americans are less likely to agree that the government should require childhood vaccinations. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed maintained that the government should not require childhood vaccinations. This is drop in confidence about the value of childhood vaccine mandates from 81 percent supporting mandates in 1991 to 62 percent reporting mandates in 2019 to 52 percent supporting mandates in 2024.
The majority of those who changed their views about the government requiring vaccines are Republicans with only 36 percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning Independents maintaining that the government should require vaccines, down from 53 percent in 2019. In fact, 60 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents are opposed to vaccine mandates. The Democrat and Democrat-leaning Independents polled only showed a three percent decline from 2019 when 72 percent agreed that the government should require vaccinations to 69 percent agreeing today.10
Despite the decline in confidence about the value of vaccination across the board, Democrats and Republicans agreed that they have heard more positive information about vaccinations since 2019 than negative information.11 This finding follows the active censorship initiated by government, industry and the mainstream media after the COVID pandemic declaration in 2020 of any type of vaccine information that conflicts with official narratives promoted by government and global health officials, the pharmaceutical industry and institutions representing medical trade, which all claim that COVID shots are safe, effective, necessary and should be mandated.12 13
If you would like to receive an e-mail notice of the most recent articles published in The Vaccine Reaction each week, click here.
Click here to view References:
No comments:
Post a Comment