As Public Support for Vaccines Tanks, Health Freedom Advocates Look to a Future of Helping Kids Detox

Acceptance of and demand for vaccines is waning, according to recent government reports and public opinion surveys — and health freedom advocates say this is good news.

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Acceptance of and demand for vaccines is waning, according to recent government reports and public opinion surveys — and health freedom advocates say this is good news.

According to a September report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vaccination rates among children born in 2020 and 2021 were lower than those for children born in 2018 and 2019. The decline was observed across “nearly all vaccines” and ranged from 1.3 to 7.8 percentage points.

The report also indicated that only 12 states met the CDC’s 95% coverage target for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) and polio vaccination in children. Only 11 states met the 95% target for two childhood doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot.

Vaccine demand is also declining among adults. CDC tracking data indicates that as of Oct. 19, only 13.5% of adults had received this year’s formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 17% in October 2022. Only 15.5% of adults said they “definitely” will get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Demand for the flu vaccine is also dropping. According to a July report in Axios that cited CDC data, “Demand for flu shots is declining, “particularly among some of the most medically vulnerable groups.”

According to the data, approximately 47% of adults reported receiving a flu shot during the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season — down from 50% in 2020-2021.

The percentage of seniors receiving a flu shot was 70% in 2022-2023, down from 75% in 2020-2021. Among adolescents, the rate in 2023-2024 was 47%, down from 56% in 2020-2021, while among pregnant women, the figure fell from 53% to 36% during the same period.

According to Axios, the numbers suggest “vaccines may be falling out of favor in a post-pandemic world.”

‘We are seeing a march towards a vaccine risk-aware world’

For health freedom advocates who spoke with The Defender, vaccines “falling out of favor” is good news.

Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said “It’s about time” for such news — or, “well past time, because so many have been injured unnecessarily.”

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, said the latest data suggest “we are seeing a march towards a vaccine risk-aware world. It’s a story of human triumph, as it would not be possible without the simple, yet dangerous, act of questioning authority.”

According to epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher, “We have reached an inflection point. A large portion of the global population has become aware of widespread regulatory capture and the immense harms posed by genetic injections.”

Jablonowski said the scientific literature hasn’t yet caught up with changing public attitudes. He added:

“I mourn the missed opportunity for scientific discourse to shine. Scientific journals still praise vaccines’ unquestionable safety while in the arena of national polls and corporate profit margins, they know better. State governments are stepping up to do the research that our federal government will not do.”

Hulscher pointed to the move by Idaho’s Southwest District Health to stop offering COVID-19 vaccines at the 30 locations where it provides healthcare services, as another sign public opinion is shifting. The district’s action “will hopefully serve as a signal for other organizations to follow suit,” he said.

Last month, an official Slovakian government report characterized mRNA vaccines as “dangerous” and called for them to be banned in the country. Also last month, a council in a Western Australia town passed a resolution calling for the ban of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

Surveys show more people believe vaccines linked to autism

A September survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found that less than half of adults (43%) plan to get a COVID-19 shot, while 37% of respondents said they don’t think they need to be vaccinated.

According to a July Gallup poll, 20% of adults surveyed responded that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they target, compared with 11% in 2019 and 6% in 2001.

According to the same survey, more Americans believe there is a link between vaccines and autism. This year’s figure, 13%, is up from 10% in 2019 and 6% in 2015. Only 36% of Americans ruled out vaccines as a cause of autism.

Parents of minors were “slightly more likely than U.S. adults overall to believe vaccines cause autism,” at a rate of 18%, while only 29% of parents said that vaccines do not cause autism. The percentage of respondents who said it’s “not at all important” that parents vaccinate their children was 7% — up from 1% in 2001.

Support for mandatory vaccination is also declining, according to the Gallup poll, with 51% of respondents supporting it — down from 62% in 2019 and 81% in 1991.

A ResearchCo survey conducted in Canada last month found 29% of Canadians believe parents “definitely” or “probably” should be the ones to decide if their children are vaccinated — a nine-point increase from 2022.

The survey also showed that 31% of Canadians believe there is a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, a 12-point increase from 2022.

According to Yahoo! Life, “These figures demonstrate a larger trend: changing attitudes toward vaccines in the United States,” citing “complex” and “sensitive” factors that are contributing to this shift.

For instance, Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, told Yahoo! Life, “There’s been a steep rise in parents asking for vaccine exemptions.”

Parks said the public’s trust in vaccines “has been broken” and “people are now looking for legitimate alternative sources of information regarding how to best protect and recover their health.”

Parks said people “realize they were lied to again and again” about the pandemic and the injections that health officials told them were vaccines that would prevent transmission.

“People later realized [the COVID-19 shots] were a form of experimental gene therapy that did not prevent transmission and only gave very limited protection from symptoms following the first injection,” Parks said.

Jablonowski said, “Big Pharma was operating on the assumption that if you repeated the ‘vaccines are safe’ lie enough, that it would become an undeniable truth.” Instead, as the risks of the COVID-19 vaccines came to light, despite the public “safe and effective” narrative, the “inevitable unveiling of the lie and the liars” followed.”

Vaccine makers cut sales forecasts amid falling demand

As public trust in vaccines has waned, Big Pharma is feeling the effects in the pocketbook.

Earlier this week, GSK cut its vaccine sales outlook for 2024 “due to weak U.S. demand” for its RSV and shingles shots. GSK’s vaccine sales were down 18% compared with the same period last year.

Last month, Moderna cut its 2024 sales forecast for its COVID-19 and RSV vaccines — by as much as 25%. According to Reuters, this is “due partly to low COVID sales to the EU that it expects to continue into 2026” and “slower than anticipated” adoption of the RSV shot.

Earlier this week, Merck also lowered its full-year sales forecast — a decline driven by decreased demand for its Gardasil HPV vaccine in China.

Dr. Jonathan Miller, chief of pediatric primary care at Nemours Children’s Health in Delaware, told Axios he suspects “the COVID pandemic and the sort of political milieu during this time has had a lot of impact on vaccine confidence and an increase in vaccine hesitancy.”

The Axios report also suggested there may be “confusion or vaccine fatigue” for some people after receiving so many COVID-19 shots and potentially getting RSV vaccines for the first time.

Kai Ruggeri, Ph.D., professor of health policy and management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, attributed growing vaccine hesitancy to “a broader polarization and mistrust in authority,” leading people to consume “misinformation.”

But for Parks, a growing percentage of the public is seeking “alternative, reputable sources of information.” As people discover this information, Parks expects attitudes will shift further.

She said:

“The whole childhood schedule is about to be rethought, and we are moving to a time when we will all know how to support our children in detoxing and boosting their immune systems naturally while ensuring lifestyle choices that promote the anti-inflammatory state need for proper infant brain development.”

Hulscher said people “should continue to disseminate vital product safety data despite the heavy winds of censorship” and accusations of misinformation.

They also should “continue educating at the grassroots level,” Parks said. “Those who are aware need to continue to educate themselves so that they can serve as a resource to others just beginning this journey. Everyone has to know the problems with vaccines in the same way that everyone knows that cigarette smoking is bad for you.”