An increasing number of parents are foregoing vaccinations for their children, citing distrust of drug producers, distributors, and health care providers, while health care organizations point the finger at misinformation.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a decline in vaccination rates in more than 30 states in the 2023-2024 school year. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends vaccination for 15 illnesses by age two. In 2020-2021, fewer children received the full regimen of vaccines than reported the year before. During the 2023-2024 time period, exemptions increased in 40 states, with 14 states reporting more than 5 percent.
In its weekly report on September 26, 2024, ACIP said decreases in vaccination could lead to a resurgence of measles, varicella, and rotavirus.
Personal Objections
A CDC survey in June and July of 2024 asking parents why they requested vaccination exemptions found most were driven by “philosophical or personal belief objection.”
More than 20 percent of those polled cited “difficulty meeting school requirements by the deadline.” More than 30 percent of those polled said they were unconcerned about unvaccinated children attending school with their children, even if they vaccinated their own children.
Not included in the survey was the effect of concerns about adverse events associated with vaccines. Vaccine side effects attracted increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic when the mRNA shots were quickly given emergency use authorization. On January 3, investigative journalist Alex Berenson reported a COVID vaccine trial involving children may have resulted in a death not fully disclosed by the vaccine maker (see page 3).
Reports of adverse events have gone beyond the COVID-19 shots. In December 2024, the Food and Drug Administration released a document showing the Phase 1 trial of two Moderna RSV vaccines was halted[SK1] due to adverse effects. It is unclear who halted the trial, FDA, Moderna or both.
The CDC says vaccines are tested for safety and effectiveness in a trial process that can take 10 to 15 years.
Loss of Trust
Trust in health care providers started taking a nosedive at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates gripped the nation. A JAMA survey showed patient trust in doctors and hospitals declined by 31 percent between April 2020 and January 2024. The survey found a correlation between trust and whether an adult received the COVID-19 shot.
“Unfortunately, it is indicative of a generalized lack of trust in health care as a whole,” said Chad Savage, M.D., founder of YourChoice Direct Care and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which co-publishes Health Care News.
“If people lack faith in their doctors, they will also lack faith in the recommendations of their doctors,” said Savage. “It has been shown that if patients understand that the physician is working in their best interest, they are much more likely to adhere to treatment recommendations. Thus, by eroding the doctor-patient relationship, the overreach of the bureaucrats will result in harm far beyond the direct relationship to their COVID mandates.”
Pandemic Doubts
In 2021, Peter McCullough, M.D., a cardiologist and a highly published scholar, publicly questioned the safety, efficacy, and long-term effects of the COVID-19 shots before a U.S. Senate panel. The testimony cost McCullough his job at a major medical center, which led him to focus on pediatric vaccines in general and posting his findings on his Courageous Discourse blog.
“Like most physicians I accepted all vaccines based on blind faith as safe and effective until the COVID-19 vaccine debacle opened my eyes,” McCullough told Health Care News.
The pandemic controversies affected parents as well. A summer 2022 survey by the University of Michigan School of Public Health found up to 13 percent of parents believed childhood vaccines were less safe, less important, and less effective than they previously thought.
The pandemic policies changed people’s attitudes toward experts, says Savage.
“We forced a COVID vaccine on kids without any proof that it worked, was safe, or necessary,” said Savage. “Now parents understandably are questioning everything recommended about vaccines. And since people don’t see polio anymore, they think, rightly or wrongly, ‘What’s the point?”
Parents are newly weighing the costs and benefits of vaccinations, says McCullough.
“Parents watching the nightmare of COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths have turned to other opinions on vaccination outside of the medical orthodoxy and have realized healthy children who forego all routine vaccines have reduced risk of childhood allergic diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders,” said McCullough.
Regulatory Distortion
The federal government’s rewarding of medical practices for pushing certain health care policies pits doctors against patients, says Savage.
“Currently, some doctors are being paid, via pay-for-performance programs, on vaccination rates,” said Savage. “This could put their self-interest at odds with the wishes of the patient,” because when patients don’t comply, the practice may no longer see them.
The same medical establishment decrying the decline in vaccinations undermined their credibility by not telling the truth about them, says Jane Orient, M.D, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“Who is to blame?” said Orient. “Government, for removing product liability from this privileged class of drugs as well as for poor regulatory standards; pharma, for taking advantage of it; doctors, for taking incentives to jab everybody and succumbing to groupthink; state lawmakers, for mandates?”
Ashley Bateman ([email protected]) writes from Virginia.
