Misinformed Parents More Likely to Skip Childrens' Vaccines

With a known vaccine skeptic as the highest health official in the U.S. and a lot of false information about vaccinations circulating online, it’s not surprise that there’s a lot of uncertainty about vaccine safety these days. KFF, an independent source for health policy research and polling, has now found that this uncertainty, especially among parents, could actually lead to lower vaccination rates among children.

A KFF survey conducted in April 2025 found that those parents who believed at least one of three false claims about measles and the measles vaccine were significantly more likely to skip or delay childhood vaccines for their kids than those parents who didn’t believe in the false information.

While just 11 percent of the parents who said that all three claims were definitely or probably false admitted to having delayed or skipped some vaccines for their children, 24 percent of those who thought at least one of the claims was probably true missed a recommended vaccine for their children. This suggests that health misinformation, which Americans come across more and more often online, has real world consequences as it sows uncertainty and doubt over what has been scientific consensus for decades.

According to the WHO, more than 100,000 people, mostly children under 5, died from measles – a death toll deemed "unacceptable" by the organization considering the availability of an effective and affordable vaccine. “Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.