- A new poll finds 29% of Make America Healthy Again parents say the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine’s risks outweigh its benefits.
- Only half of Americans are confident COVID-19 shots are safe for kids, including just 21% of Republicans.
- Confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety during pregnancy has fallen to 39% from 53% in 2022.
- Nearly half of parents believe spacing out childhood vaccines is healthier, a view reflected in President Trump’s August executive order.
- Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland suggested the poll’s pre-midterm timing was meant to prop up faith in vaccines.
A new KFF poll released this week reveals a striking split in American vaccine confidence: while 82% of adults still say the benefits of the decades-old MMR vaccine outweigh its risks, only half are confident COVID-19 shots are safe for kids. The findings come just ahead of midterm elections, prompting one prominent critic to question whether the poll’s release was strategically timed to bolster flagging faith in vaccines.
Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland called attention to the timing, suggesting that KFF, which she described as a pro-vaccine, pro-medical establishment enterprise, is attempting to “prop up the narrative that most people still have faith in vaccines.”
Poll finds deep political divide on COVID shots for children
The partisan gap on COVID-19 vaccine confidence is dramatic. Among Democrats, 77% expressed trust in the safety of pediatric COVID vaccines. That number drops to 50% among independents and just 21% among Republicans.
Supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement are nearly as skeptical, with only 28% expressing confidence in COVID shots for children.
The erosion of trust extends to pregnancy. Overall, 39% of adults now say they are confident COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women, down from 53% in May 2022. Confidence has dropped 17 points among Democrats and 15 points among Republicans since that time.
That skepticism has a basis. Pfizer launched a randomized trial in pregnant women in 2021, saying it would enroll 4,000 participants, but only 161 vaccinated women and 159 placebo recipients completed the blinded portion, physician and epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg reported. She noted that the results did not include outcomes such as miscarriage and wrote that “because they limited the size of the trial, Pfizer can always say they didn’t find a significant signal.”
Parents divided over whether to spread out childhood shots
The KFF survey found parents nearly evenly divided on a key question: whether receiving vaccines separately is better for children. Forty-eight percent said spacing out shots is healthier, while 52% said strong evidence doesn’t support that approach.
The split runs along party lines. Sixty-eight percent of Democratic parents saw no evidence that separating vaccines is healthier, while 69% of Republican parents insisted children do better when shots aren’t given together.
This debate carries real-world weight. In earlier surveys, KFF found that getting several shots in one visit ranked among parents’ top reasons for skipping or delaying childhood vaccines. KFF’s write-up labeled the parents who favor spacing as mistaken, yet the White House shares their view: Trump’s August executive order calls for giving shots at separate visits where feasible.
MMR doubts run higher among MAHA-supporting parents
Even trust in the well-established MMR vaccine shows cracks among movement parents. While 69% of MAHA-supporting parents still believe the MMR’s benefits outweigh its risks, 29% said the opposite. Among parents who do not support the MAHA movement, just 16% took that position.
Confidence in other childhood vaccines varies as well. Large majorities across party lines expressed trust in the polio vaccine. For hepatitis B and flu shots, more than 80% of Democrats felt confident, compared with roughly 60% of Republicans.
Few Americans are following the vaccine schedule overhaul
The poll also found that most Americans have paid little attention to proposed changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. Fifty-nine percent of adults said they had heard “not much” or “nothing at all” about the administration’s latest attempts to rewrite it, including the August executive order, whose push to limit routine childhood vaccination to 11 diseases remains blocked in federal court for now.
Among those who had heard about the proposed changes, 60% expected negative health impacts. But 38% of all adults said they simply weren’t sure what effect the changes would have.
KFF, which is running its own series on health in the 2026 midterms, highlighted steady confidence in long-standing shots. The more telling number may be the sharp drop in faith in COVID vaccines during pregnancy, shots Britain no longer even recommends for expectant mothers. Americans who were told for years that these vaccines were safe for everyone are now asking to see the full data, and on that front, the public may be ahead of the pollsters.
Sources for this article include:
TracyBethHoegMDPhD.Substack.com
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