I know that many of us are truly frightened about what Robert F Kennedy Jr is going to do with vaccines for Americans. Still, I want to ensure that everyone who reads this knows that vaccines are extremely popular with Americans.

CDC data provides evidence that over 90% of American children are vaccinated against diseases that can cause hospitalization and death. If American parents can’t get vaccines in the USA, they will go to Canada, Mexico, or some other rational country to get them. And they will be protected against disease.

This post will review how many Americans, and their children, have received their vaccines because we all know that vaccines are safe and effective.

Vaccines and Americans — kindergartners

In 2024, the CDC reported the following vaccine coverage for kindergarteners:

• 92.3% have received the DTaP vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis)
• 92.3% have received both doses of the varicella vaccine for chickenpox.
• 93.9% have received the hepatitis B vaccine.
• 92.7% have received the MMR vaccine for mumps, measles, and rubella.
• 92.6% have received the polio vaccine.
• 45.8% have received the influenza (flu) vaccine.
• 12.1% have received the COVID vaccine.

Other important vaccines are recommended for children, but vaccine coverage is not tracked by the CDC at this time, including rotavirus, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b), pneumococcal, and hepatitis A vaccines.

The vaccine coverage is sufficiently high to maintain a herd effect, preventing small outbreaks from becoming epidemics. Unfortunately, vaccine coverage has dropped a bit over the past few years, and the levels for flu and COVID vaccines remain stubbornly low. If this trend continues, we could see an uptick in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.

Vaccines and Americans — teens

In 2023, the CDC reported the following vaccine coverage for teens:

• 61.4% of teens are up-to-date with the cancer-preventing HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine.
• 89.0% of teens have had the Tdap vaccine (the version of the DTaP vaccine for older children and adults).
• 91.3% of teens are up-to-date with the MMR vaccine.
• 86.9% of teens are up-to-date with the hepatitis A vaccine.
• 90.9% of teens are up-to-date with the hepatitis B vaccine.
• 88.4% of teens are up-to-date with the meningococcal vaccine.
• 90.8% of teens are up-to-date with the varicella vaccine for chickenpox.

Again, other than HPV vaccine coverage, which makes no sense since it is one of the safest vaccines and can prevent cancer, Americans keep their teens up to date with their recommended vaccines.

Vaccines and Americans — polls

KFF published some new polls, with trends over the five years, of vaccine attitudes among Americans.

In 2021, around 90% of American parents said that they would keep their children up-to-date with their vaccinations. That has dropped to 82% in 2025, with most of it coming from Republican parents, which dropped from 87% to 72%.

A similar but more dramatic change in views about the MMR vaccine can be seen over the same period. In 2019, 88% of Americans said that the benefits outweighed the risks (which are rare, minor, and don’t include autism) with little difference between Democrats and Republicans.

In 2025, the percentage for Democrats remains unchanged, and for Republicans, it dropped to 74%.

Most Americans reject the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism, but again there is a split between Democrats and Republicans. Around 83% of Democrats think the myth is definitely or probably false, which means I’ve got to keep debunking this myth. Unfortunately, only 75% of Independents and 70% of Republicans reject this myth, which correlates to their desire to keep their children up-to-date with vaccines.

Summary

Despite the differences between Republicans and Democrats, the vast majority of Americans will vaccinate their children. Now that number could drop with unscientific nonsense out of the mouth of Robert F Kennedy Jr, but the most important point is that vaccines are very popular among Americans.

Of course, that may not matter going forward if vaccines are pulled off the market, but we should not think that everyone wants vaccines to go away.

As lies and myths are pushed about vaccines by the Trump administration, these numbers may get worse. Then, more children will get sick from diseases that we haven’t seen in 60 or 70 years.

I had friends in high school who had contracted polio, and I don’t want that to come back to my children. It scares me.

Vaccines save lives.