Last week, President Trump signed an executive order that once again casts doubt on childhood vaccines, especially the measles vaccine, which, like his Health Secretary Kennedy, he implies causes autism.
The decline in vaccination coverage over the past few years has paved the way for a measles outbreak on a scale the United States had not seen in 35 years (2,289 cases in 2025 and 2,566 in 2026, 93% of them among unvaccinated children). But we should not assume that large numbers of American parents are swallowing Trump and Kennedy’s misinformation. In reality, the decline in measles vaccination coverage has been very small: just 2.8 percentage points, from 95.2% in 2019–2020 to 92.4% in 2025–2026. The decrease was only 0.1 percentage point during the last school year, which began nine months after the start of Trump’s current presidency. That is a very, very long way from Trump’s 52% share of the vote in 2024. Even most hard-line MAGA supporters are resisting disinformation when it concerns their children’s health.
People do not accept health misinformation as readily as is often assumed.
Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html, https://www.cdc.gov/schoolvaxview/data/index.html
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HIFA profile: Bernard Seytre is a Consultant at BNSCommunication in France. Professional interests: Health communication and education. seytre AT bnscom.fr