The impacts of these attitudes are neither academic nor far in the future: we’re already in the midst of an unprecedented measles outbreak that many attribute to the vaccine skepticism that RFK Jr. and his ilk have spawned and encouraged. Confidence in the polio and MMR vaccines is both high and across party lines, drops and begins to diverge for the Hepatitis B and flu vaccines, and has a huge partisan split for the COVID vaccine — 79% of Democrats have confidence, but only 28% of Republicans, and even only 45% for Independents. A December Pew Research Center survey found that trust in the federal government is at an all-time low, with only 17% saying they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (15%).
Author: matthew holt
Published at: 2026-02-10 22:54:38
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