Washington D.C. – Today, Protect Our Care and 314 Action hosted a poll briefing with Dr. Paul Offit, Dr. Jasmine Clark, and Dr. Beth Fuller revealing voters’ strong aversion to Donald Trump’s executive order that demands the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine be broken up into separate shots for children over several costly doctor visits, while opening the door for states to loosen school immunization requirements and leaving kids more vulnerable to harmful disease. [View recording of event HERE]
A new Public Policy Polling national survey, conducted on behalf of Protect Our Care and 314 Action, found voters strongly oppose Trump’s executive order to water down federal vaccine recommendations for children — decisions that put his Republican allies in Congress in a far less favorable light. [View PPP Summary Memo and Full Results Here].
KEY FINDINGS:
- 76% of voters support routine childhood vaccinations, 56% strongly
- 58% of voters disapprove of Trump’s executive order; 49% strongly disapprove vs. 25% strongly approve — 2-to-1 against.
- 71% say doctors and scientists — not Trump — should make decisions about childhood vaccines; only 14% say Trump. That’s 5-to-1.
- Trump said that kids were getting so much vaccination that it could fill a soda bottle, but voters don’t believe it. 43% say they think he’s lying and 27% think he’s exaggerating.
- When presented with 4 different factual proof points about Trump’s executive order, in all cases 50%–54% say it makes them view Republicans less favorably (44%–48% “much less”). Voters were most alarmed by the fact Trump’s children’s vaccine recommendations may mean parents pay significantly more, viewing Republicans 54% less favorable.
- Trump himself is underwater as 39% approve/56% disapprove while RFK Jr. is similarly underwater at 37% approve/55% disapprove, essentially matching each other nationally.
Brad Woodhouse, President, Protect Our Care: “Most voters are aware Donald Trump lies as easy as breathing, which is why his cock-and-bull like soda bottle-sized vaccines doesn’t pass the laugh test. The problem is enough parents are still scared off by Trump’s made-up anti-vax rhetoric from the White House pulpit that it becomes a deadly situation for many children. Discouraging the measles vaccine in the middle of a record measles outbreak should be criminal for a president. And for Republicans who go along with it, it’s political suicide. If Trump’s accomplices in Congress cheer on or remain silent while the anti-vaxxer-in-chief puts kids in harm’s way, that makes them just as dangerous.”
Shaughnessy Naughton, President of 314 Action: “This is a healthcare election—affordability, access and now vaccines are on the ballot. This new poll shows vaccine policy is now the GOP’s greatest existential and political liability in the midterms. As infectious disease outbreaks spread nationwide, voters are coming face-to-face with the reality of an administration that has turned its back on science and public health—with deadly consequences. In November, voters have a chance to put a stop to this ideological warfare on evidence and facts by electing doctors and scientists to Washington to stop the bleeding.”
Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center: “Donald Trump said we needed to separate the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine into its three component parts, so that instead of getting two shots in the first five years of life, children would get six shots. Now it’s based on the false notion that the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine caused autism, when 24 separate studies have already shown that’s not true. So there’s no reason to separate it out. Those vaccines have not been available as separate shots since 2009. And the two companies that make that vaccine have stepped forward and said we’re not going to separate this out because it doesn’t make the vaccine safer. It only makes it more expensive and more difficult to get. That would mean making a new vaccine. That would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to basically make a vaccine against something you’re already making that works and is safe. Decades of research have shown that childhood vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, effective, and critical to protecting your child’s health. Today’s vaccines are highly targeted. This means our current vaccine schedule protects your child against more diseases while placing less strain on their immune systems.”
Dr. Jasmine Clark, from Georgia’s 13th Congressional District: “Not only is science not on the side of RFK Jr., Donald Trump, and Republicans, history is not on their side as well. So what we are doing is we are dealing with this health secretary that is insistent on peddling pseudoscience. This basically undermines settled science. Nothing has changed in the scientific world. There has not been any new discoveries or something new that has prompted this executive order or what RFK Jr. is asking us to do. It is all a figment of their imagination, and it is setting our country back decades when it comes to keeping the most vulnerable in our communities protected from these contagions, and along with this executive order moving public health in the wrong direction. It also is logistically infeasible for most working families. I’m a mom of two. I have gone through this before. I can tell you right now in a country that does not have universal access to healthcare, and in a country where paid leave is not accessible to. This order does not make logistical sense. Having to go to multiple doctor visits instead of getting something done in one doctor visit, does not make sense. Separating the vaccines so that families have to take more time off, which for many families means less money coming into the house and the ability for them to pay their regular bills. Families aren’t going to choose to do multiple doctor visits over putting food on the table. So what happens? Those children do not get the necessary vaccines that they need to get, and kids don’t like shots. Why would we sign an executive order that tells us to give or tells doctors to give kids more shots instead of less. None of this makes any sense, but that’s what we’re dealing with because we have a health secretary that has no idea what he’s doing and is following and a president that’s following behind him in spreading these conspiracy theories, this is why we need to leave these decisions to the scientists, the immunologists, the doctors, and the families instead of having Donald Trump and his minions meddling in these medical decisions. Leave our vaccines alone. It’s as simple as that.”
Dr. Beth Fuller, from Georgia’s House District 53 and former CDC contractor: “The executive order is throwing up barriers. It’s making it more difficult for parents to get their children the preventative care that they need. More difficult with more doctor visits, with scheduling. So my real role here is to bring evidence into the policy making sphere. I want evidence. I want legislation to be debated and passed when it’s based on solid evidence of improving Georgians’ lives, not based on political sound bites and on posturing.”
BACKGROUND: Donald Trump’s science-denying executive order will sow more parental confusion and vaccine hesitancy amid the worst measles outbreak in 35 years and as kindergartners’ exemptions from school vaccine requirements have reached another record high. If states follow that order, preventable disease will surge, and more children will be hospitalized or worse. While Trump insists on adding more costs and burden on parents by splicing up the MRR shots — based on nothing but completely disproven risks of autism –Trump’s own CDC website states the facts: “No published scientific evidence shows any benefit in separating the combination MMR vaccine into three individual shots.”
That is why over 210 leading medical, health and patient advocacy groups have condemned Trump’s anti-vax executive order and at least 88 Democratic lawmakers in Congress are demanding its immediate rescission.
###