Most Americans disapprove of RFK Jr.’s changes to vaccine policy, new poll says

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that adults who had heard of federal changes to the childhood vaccine schedule were twice as likely to say it would hurt children than help them. 

The majority of Americans say that US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s efforts to loosen vaccine recommendations will have a negative impact on children’s health, a new poll shows. 

The poll was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation soon after federal health officials under Kennedy removed several routine vaccines from the list of those it universally recommends that parents give their children.

Doctors and medical experts worry that Kennedy’s vaccine changes are only the opening salvo in a longer campaign that eventually makes vaccines hard or impossible to get—even for people and parents who want them. 

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The poll found that adults who had heard of the changes were twice as likely to say it would hurt children than help them. The poll also found that 57% of respondents disapproved of Kennedy’s approach to vaccines overall.

Most of the results fell along party lines, with 83% of Democrats opposing the changes to the schedule. But a majority of independents (54%) and a smaller, but significant chunk of Republicans (23%) also disapproved. Notably, even 20% of people who identify with the Make America Healthy Again movement, one closely aligned with Kennedy, said the changes would hurt children.

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Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who has cited vaccine misinformation for more than a decade, trying to frame vaccines as unhealthy. More than 55% of respondents either somewhat or strongly disapproved of Kennedy’s performance as HHS Secretary.

The poll also shows that majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents say they do not trust what they hear from the Centers for Disease Control and other health officials.

The poll comes as a measles outbreak in South Carolina, the largest in the country, has been trickling into North Carolina. While the measles vaccine is still on the federal list of universally recommended vaccines, rising vaccine hesitancy, fueled in part by Kennedy’s public skepticism, is the biggest driver of the measles resurgence.