Fewer than half of Americans believe federal health agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) can do key parts of their job, like ensuring new vaccines are safe, new poll findings show.
Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 42 percent of people in the U.S. think federal health agencies are effectively able to respond to infectious disease outbreaks, according to a poll released Tuesday by the health nonprofit KFF.
The poll’s findings show that 46 percent of American adults are confident that the FDA, CDC and other health agencies can make sure prescription drugs are safe and effective for public use.
Meanwhile, 45 percent of Americans think federal health agencies can ensure that vaccines are safe and effective, and about 60 percent believe the FDA and CDC have at least a “fair amount” of confidence that they can provide accurate information on vaccines.
Another 32 percent of people are confident that these agencies can act “independently without outside interference,” according to the poll.
KFF conducted a similar poll in 2023 and found that overall trust levels in federal health agencies have remained largely unchanged.
But Tuesday’s poll findings reveal a significant partisan shift towards these agencies since the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s have “started to change vaccine policy and messaging.”
“There are remarkably low levels of trust in the nation’s scientific agencies, shaped by partisan perspectives, and that presents a real danger for the country if and when another pandemic hits,” said KFF President and CEO Drew Altman.
In 2023, 86 percent of Americans who identified as Democrats said they viewed the FDA as a reliable source of vaccine information and 88 percent said they trusted the CDC to provide reliable information on vaccines, according to KFF.
That percentage has dropped dramatically with 67 percent of Democrats believing the FDA provides reliable vaccine information and 70 percent trusting the CDC to do the same, according to Tuesday’s KFF poll.
Republicans are now more likely to trust either agency when it comes to vaccines.
Now, 52 percent of Americans who identify as Republicans trust the FDA to provide accurate information on vaccines and 51 percent trust the CDC to do the same.
But in 2023, 42 percent of Republicans trusted the FDA to release reliable vaccine information and 51 percent felt the same about the CDC.
This survey was conducted April 8-15, 2025, among 1,380 U.S. adults in English and in Spanish. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
