It takes but seconds to type the three words “vaccines cause problems” into the Google search box and generate tens of millions of results. Some articles feature desperate parents trying to warn the Internet of the life-altering ailments from which their sons and daughters suffer as a result of a single needle, of a scheming government and corporate industry valuing the big bucks over the futures of innocent children. Other websites purport to debunk these “myths,” citing scientific journals as robust evidence. Despite the contentious façade we are faced with regarding the safety of vaccines, research shows that a majority of Americans do approve of the current U.S. policy requiring all children to be inoculated prior to entering public schools.
Indeed, it appears that agreement over current U.S. vaccine policy transcends boundaries of all kinds. Gender, ethnicity, income, political ideology, and other identifiers, all seem unable to penetrate this steadfast belief.
One prevailing notion is that conservative Republicans are generally allies of those who disapprove of vaccines. On the contrary, the most recent poll by the Harvard Public Opinion Project reveals that 84 percent of young Americans who identify with the GOP approve of current U.S. policy. The poll shows that 89 percent of young Democrats approve of the same. That’s a mere five point difference between the two political camps. As Nicholas Riccardi of the Associated Press noted in February, “a Pew poll found that Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to oppose vaccine mandates.” Further analysis of the data shows that this difference is “slight” in every sense of the word.
On average, 83.75 percent of all young Americans, surveyed according to ethnicity, approve of U.S. vaccine policy. Among this data, blacks demonstrate the lowest approval rate, at 81 percent, and Hispanics demonstrate the highest approval rate, at 86 percent. The difference is not much. Admittedly, the survey offers only four categories: white, black, Hispanic, and other, leading to the conclusion that not every ethnicity is represented independently. However, given that whites and blacks make up 90.9 percent of the U.S. ethnic demographic alone (not accounting for Hispanics, who can be defined in multiple ways), the general approval rate is both high and consistent. The breakdowns along other categories, such as gender, region, religion, education enrollment, and more, reveal a similar percentage. For example, 91 percent of young Catholics and 88 percent of young Protestants approve of the current U.S. policy. Almost 90 percent of young Americans who indicated no religion also approve of this policy. Regional breakdowns offer another example. In the Northeast, 85 percent of young Americans approve of the policy; in the South, 82 percent approve.
To be sure, a vast majority of Americans approving of U.S. vaccine policy indicates the existence of a minority that does not. As demonstrated by the Harvard Public Opinion Project poll, a conservative estimate shows that for approximately every eight young Americans who approve of current U.S. policy requiring children to be vaccinated before entering public schools, there are another two who disapprove. Doctors are among those who are severely disappointed by the results. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh, expressed in a Time article this February, “For people still to believe vaccines are unsafe—despite all the evidence—is really frustrating.” Indeed, experts recommend that about 92-95 percent of all Americans be inoculated in order to prevent those who are not vaccinated from spreading diseases to those who are. The general approval rate of U.S. vaccine policies (which is around 80-85 percent) may be a large number, but it still falls short of the expert recommendation.