By Zachary Stieber
Contributing Writer
Nearly half of Americans do not support requiring vaccines, according to a new poll.
Some 46% of respondents to the poll — conducted in March by a company called Public First for Politico — said that they believe facts on vaccines are still up for debate and that it is damaging to enforce their uptake.
That included 54% of respondents who voted for President Donald Trump, and 36% of respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Another 39% said that the science on vaccines is clear, and it is damaging to question that.
That included 52% of Harris voters and 3 in 10 Trump voters.
The rest of the respondents chose neither option.
Politico released a summary of the poll results of 3,851 adults on April 14.
Public First did not respond to a request for the full results by publication time.
Respondents were also asked whether they’d rather risk more cases of diseases labeled preventable by vaccines, such as measles, alongside support for the freedom of individuals to choose whether to receive vaccines. Some 47% of respondents, including 58% of Democrats, said that the return of the diseases was not worth the risk, while 39%, including 49% of Republicans, or a plurality, said it was.
The margin of error for the poll was plus/minus 1.6%.
A growing number of doctors, activists and organizations have expressed opposition to vaccine mandates in recent years, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some of the country’s other top health officials. Exemptions to mandates, which are in place in virtually every state for school attendance, have been rising.
Administration officials said in January that a review of the policies of other countries found that peer nations had immunization rates similar to the United States, even without mandates. That helped prompt officials to downgrade recommendations for six vaccines, although that change was later blocked by a federal judge.
Other recent surveys have returned mixed results regarding mandates for vaccination.
About 80% of respondents to a poll conducted by John Zogby Strategies in February for groups that oppose mandates said that Americans have the right to refuse vaccines, and 65.7% of respondents said parents have the right not to have their children vaccinated.
About three-quarters of respondents to a Reuters-Ipsos poll that month said that healthy children should be required to be vaccinated to attend school, and 23% said unvaccinated children should be allowed in schools.
