A new survey finds broad support in Arizona for traditional childhood vaccines — the ones kids get from birth to 2 years old, like polio; hepatitis; and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
The survey was conducted on behalf of the advocacy group Arizona Families for Vaccines. It found 83% of respondents said these traditional vaccines are a good thing — that includes nearly 70% of Republicans. Around 90% of respondents believe these vaccines are safe and effective and more than three-fourths support requirements that Arizona students get these vaccines.
All of this comes as childhood vaccination rates continue to fall nationwide and in Arizona and federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently reduced the number of vaccines the CDC recommends for children.
Notably, the poll did not ask about seasonal vaccines, like those for the flu or COVID-19.
Ashley Chambers is executive director of Arizona Families for Vaccines. She joined The Show to talk more about the survey.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Ashley, what surprised you in the results?
ASHLEY CHAMBERS: I think the thing that surprised me the most — and I would say pleasantly surprised me the most — is that there is so much anti-vaccine rhetoric out there. And so what surprised me the most is when we look at the outcome of this poll is despite all those really strong voices, the overwhelming majority of people in Arizona support traditional childhood vaccines; believe they are safe; believe they are effective at preventing serious disease and death; and want policymakers who will stand up for those traditional vaccines and emphasize the importance of those traditional vaccines.
So I was really pleasantly surprised by that.
BRODIE: Why do you think it is? Why do you think there’s this disconnect between, as your poll found, a pretty good amount of support for childhood vaccines and yet people who are getting elected by presumably many of those same voters who do not believe that?
CHAMBERS: I think — and this is kind of a little bit of a broader spectrum and maybe this speaks to politics in general — but I do think that there is a swath of voters who are single issue voters who really look for one thing.
And I think that that applies to our lawmakers as well. There is a percentage of lawmaker — I can think of a few in particular — whose main issue is vaccine policy, and they really just talk about it a lot. And when an issue like that takes up a lot of a person’s time, whether that’s a politician or whether that’s someone in the general public, it can sort of seem like that sentiment is echoed by a lot of people when in fact it’s really not.
And another aspect of this that I think is really important to understand is that when you look at vaccination rates in terms of parents who actually immunize their kiddos against these really dangerous diseases, the overwhelming number of parents also immunize their kids. But they’re not going out there, and they’re not publicizing it. They’re not posting it on social media every time their kid got a vaccine.
In contrast, a lot of people who have sort of fallen down this rabbit hole of misinformation, not only do they not vaccinate themselves or their kiddos, but they also sort of make it their mission, whether that’s in person or whether that’s online, to spread these perceived of what they believe to be “dangers” of vaccines.
BRODIE: I’m also curious about the seeming disconnect between what your poll found and the percentage of parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids. Especially in places like Yavapai County and we’ve seen in other places around the state, vaccination rates, childhood vaccination rates are falling. It seems like that would sort of be at odds with what people told the pollsters here.
CHAMBERS: You know, I think it’s a good point. And we know that vaccination rates vary wildly based off of where you live, even within counties. But I do think that overall, the poll showed that regardless of where you live, still the majority of people vaccinate their kiddos. But when you’re talking about a place like Yavapai county, which has very low vaccination rates, still that’s 75% of people in Yavapai county who vaccinate their kiddos.
I think when you put it into perspective of if you asked a politician, “Hey, you got 75% of the voters in that district. Is that something you’re happy with?” I think any politician would say, “Yes, I’m very happy with that.”
BRODIE: So obviously your poll deals with the, as you call them, traditional childhood vaccines and does not look at things like the flu vaccine or the COVID vaccine or something like that that a lot of adults get later in life: the shingles vaccine, things like that.
I wonder if you sort of have a gut feeling about whether if you were to have included those other vaccines, the level of support would have roughly similar or different than what you found for the childhood vaccines.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, it’s a good question. Obviously we didn’t include that in the data. I think my gut reaction is that it would be sort of a tiered effect. I think the support for these traditional childhood vaccines would be the strongest. I think the next level down of support would be the flu vaccine.
And then I think the probably the least valued and appreciated would probably be the COVID vaccine. And I’m just talking about kiddos right now. I’m just talking about kids. I think you would probably be more likely to see parents — and I experienced this in conversations with my friends and kids that my kids play sports with. I hear a lot of people who say that they did get the flu vaccine for their kids, but they didn’t get the COVID vaccine for their kids. So I … would assume that there is a tiered level of support in terms of those other sort of more seasonal vaccines for their kiddos.
BRODIE: Sure. How would you like this data to be used when it comes to informing public policy or talking to policymakers?
CHAMBERS: I would really like this information to be used to show our politicians and our leaders in the Arizona Legislature that these anti-vaccine bills that they have been putting forth and giving hearings to and passing — every Republican lawmaker last session voted to advance not bills that would have increased access or confidence in vaccines, but would have sort of put either restrictions on vaccines or increased warnings on vaccine use — just to stop doing those policies because this is not what the majority of Arizonans want.
There was a question in our poll about whether people believed that it was the role of our politicians to protect public health. And overwhelmingly across the political spectrum, people voted yes, that they wanted politicians to respect public health and to do policies that would protect public health. So I think that’s a clear message from the voters to our Legislature that what they are doing when they advance and vote for these anti-vaccine policies is out of step with what people want, what their constituents want and what they actually do.
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