RFK Jr. he vowed to restore public trust in health. It doesn’t work, suggests a new survey.
Americans are losing confidence in the nation’s health institutions, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.
A survey of 1,650 adults, conducted last month, found that when it comes to health, most Americans say they trust their doctors, pediatricians and career scientists at government agencies more than the political appointees charged with overseeing those scientists.
It comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defending some of his most controversial decisions as necessary to restore public health trust.
After firing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez after just a month on the job, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the agency had “destroyed the public’s trust” and that it was his job to restore it. And when he fired all members of the powerful vaccine advisory committee last summer, he said the Department of Health and Human Services “prioritises the restoration of public trust above any pro- or anti-vaccination.”
However, trust in public health agencies has declined in Trump’s second term, according to the survey. Confidence in the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health increased by nearly 75% during the Biden administration. Since Trump’s second term began, trust in corporations has dropped to just over 60%.
But 67% of adults said they trust occupational scientists at agencies like the CDC, NIH and FDA to provide reliable information about public health.
“The public is dividing the credibility of the scientists working at the CDC, NIH, and FDA from that of the leaders of those agencies,” said Ken Winneg, director of research studies, in a press release.
Less than half of respondents said they trusted some of the country’s top public health officials, including Kennedy and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Thirty-eight percent of Americans say they trust Kennedy to provide reliable information about public health, while 42% say the same about Oz.
Those numbers fall short of the 54% of Americans who say they trust Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci was a central figure, but also a divisive one, during the country’s response to the Covid pandemic, working under the administrations of Trump and Biden.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement that public health trust has been declining since the start of the pandemic, citing research that looks at trust in doctors and hospitals.
“Secretary Kennedy was brought in to restore credibility through transparency, gold standard science, and accountability,” Nixon said. “HHS is focused on rebuilding public confidence by ensuring that decisions are driven by strong evidence.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration made unprecedented changes to the childhood immunization program, removing the shot to protect against influenza, RSV and hepatitis B and others from the list of recommended vaccines.
More than three-quarters of respondents, 77%, said they trust the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the group most opposed to changes in the vaccination system.
In the past year, the AAP has taken a growing role in protecting children’s vaccines — pushing back on its own set of recommendations as the state’s vaccine guidance shifted to “shared clinical decision-making.” In December, CDC advisers handpicked by Kennedy voted to change the long-standing recommendation that all newborns receive the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth.
A new study shows that more Americans are with the AAP than the CDC over vaccine disagreement. Forty-two percent of people surveyed were likely to accept recommendations from the AAP on hepatitis B vaccines, compared to 11% who said they would trust the CDC on the same issue. Others said they were unsure whether they would take the group’s recommendation.
In addition to the AAP, major professional medical organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Medical Association are more trusted than government agencies when it comes to public health information.
More than 8 in 10 Americans (82%) say they trust the American Heart Association, while 73% said they trust the American Medical Association. And 86% said they trust their doctors and nurses to give them reliable information about public health.
“The most exciting news here is that people trust your doctor,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who is also a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “This speaks to the importance of asking doctors to help translate all the noise that surrounds health in America.”
