A new poll looks at RFK Jr., Tylenol and vaccines, and finds growing distrust : Shots

People's views on health are increasingly influenced by how they feel about politics, according to a new survey.

Consider President Trump's September 22 warning about acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, surveyed voters about Trump's statements the day after he made them.

“We're seeing it very divided among partisans,” says Ashley Kirzinger, KFF's deputy polling director. Poll found 59% of Democrats believe President Trump's claims about Tylenol were “definitely false.” On the other hand, almost the same percentage of Republicans — 56% — thought the statement was either “definitely true” or “probably true.”

There are no scientific studies showing a cause-and-effect relationship between acetaminophen and autism. But during an unusual news conference last month, Trump told pregnant women to “tough it out” and avoid taking the popular painkiller. Meanwhile, doctors' groups continue to reiterate that it is the safest medicine to take during pregnancy, when untreated fever or pain can cause other problems.

The poll, which also asked voters questions on other topics, provides insight into how dramatically public opinion, as well as federal health care policy, has changed.

The poll found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seen a sharp drop in public trust, most recently among Democrats, as the Trump administration works to roll back many of its mandates. Kirzinger notes a 24% decline in trust in CDC vaccine information among Democrats over the past two years alone.

“The problem is that the mistrust is caused by the very people who are supposedly leading us,” former Surgeon General Richard Carmona told NPR. Carmona, who served under President George W. Bush, is one of six former surgeons general who recently wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post warning that Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses a “threat” to the nation's health. “They eliminated the agencies that had actual scientists providing information and replaced it with ideology instead,” Carmona says. “We are already seeing the return of diseases like measles. People will die and the consequences will be significant.”

Kirzinger says surveys have historically consistently shown that people trust their doctors most when it comes to getting advice about their own health. But increasingly — and especially since the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump's secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — she says party lines are playing a more important role in determining what sources of information people rely on as the basis for their health decisions. “Among Republicans, RFK is as trusted … as his own health care provider,” Kirzinger says, the data shows.

Yet overall, Kennedy's job approval ratings are low; the poll also found that 59% of people—mostly Democrats and independents—disapprove of the idea.

Kirzinger says that as trust in federal health agencies declines, people are turning to entirely different sources.

Democrats say they are relying on professional medical groups such as the American Medical Association. “More than 8 in 10 Democrats say they trust the AMA or the American Academy of Pediatrics, but among Republicans that is only half,” Kirzinger says.

This means that the public health landscape is very fragmented and people make choices based on very different beliefs. “As people turn to different sources of information to make decisions about their health care, we will see party affiliation play a larger role in what people decide to do,” she says.