Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.
With the increase in measles cases and substantial public awareness of the situation, several new polls have explored attitudes about vaccines. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and YouGov released polls in April, building on data Gallup and others have collected over a long period of time.
Only 6% in the KFF poll had not heard about the increase measles cases in recent years, while 56% had. Sixty-three percent said they had heard or read that MMR vaccines had been “proven to cause autism in children,” a response virtually unchanged from their 2023 poll.
KFF and YouGov both asked whether people believed these reports. Three percent in the KFF poll said the autism claim was definitely true and 20% probably true. Compared to 2023, the responses have been stable, but there were partisan differences. Ten percent of Democrats and 35% of Republicans said the claim that the vaccine causes autism was definitely or probably true. In YouGov’s poll, 8% said the statement “vaccines have been shown to cause autism” was definitely true while 15% said probably true. When Gallup asked in July 2024 if certain vaccines “cause” autism, 13% said they did, 36% did not, with 51% unsure.
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Gallup shows a significant decline in views about whether childhood vaccines should be required, driven in recent years by Republicans. In 1991, 81% said government should require parents to have their children vaccinated against measles. That’s now 51%. Republicans were also much less likely than Democrats to say it was very important to get kids vaccinated (93% to 52%). In Pew questions in 2019 and 2020, Democrats and Republicans broadly agreed that healthy children should be required to get vaccines, but in 2023, Republicans sharply departed from this view.