Poll: More Than Half of Americans Want Right to Sue Vaccine Makers for Injuries
More than a third of respondents said they have little or no trust in federal health agencies, and more than half opposed government mandates for vaccines that haven’t been fully licensed.
A recent poll of 1,005 national voters shows that more than a third — 36% — don’t trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), compared with 59% who have full or at least some trust in those public health agencies. Only 5% were undecided.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) commissioned the online national survey, conducted in November 2024 by Zogby Strategies. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 3.2 percentage points, with subgroups having higher margins.
Federal health agencies have long faced a lack of trust from the American public. However, this distrust goes deeper than simple ideological bias. The polarization seen during and after the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the trust gap between the government and the public. The survey shows that even among moderates, 33% do not trust the CDC and FDA, while 60% do trust them, leaving 7% undecided.
In the survey, 41% of voters believe the government mishandled or failed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 52% who think it managed the pandemic well or did the best it could.
Only 13% of respondents said the government handled the pandemic effectively.
The poll also showed that fewer than half of the surveyed individuals supported government vaccine mandates. The group most opposed to vaccine mandates consisted of 45- to 64-year-olds, of whom 55% oppose them.
Additionally, more than half (57%) of poll respondents believed vaccine makers should lose their immunity from legal action and the public should be able to sue the manufacturer of a vaccine that caused them harm.
“This data highlights a significant loss of trust in our regulatory agencies,” said CHD CEO Mary Holland. “Allowing this distrust to persist will further undermine the public’s confidence in our healthcare organizations.”
Holland added:
“We must emphasize that if the government wishes to regain credibility, it must recognize the realities of vaccines. Until that happens, Americans are less likely to heed their guidance, and the remaining public faith in these institutions will ultimately vanish.”
Voters were asked five questions:
1. Do Americans trust government health agencies like the CDC and FDA?
More than a third (36%) of Americans said they have little or no trust in the FDA and CDC, vs. 59% of who have complete or at least some trust. Of the 59% who lean toward trust, 21% said they had “complete trust” and 38% have “some trust.” Nearly a fourth (23%) selected “not too much trust” and another 13% said they have “no trust at all.”
2. Should the government be able to mandate vaccines?
A slight majority (51%) sided with personal health choices, while 40% favored mandates. Across all ages, less than half of respondents favored mandates. Those most opposed (55.3%) were 45 to 64-year-olds. Slightly more than half (51.4%) of parents with a child age 17 or younger living at home chose personal choice over mandates.
3. What about experimental vaccines that haven’t been subjected to standard safety testing — should the government be able to mandate those?
An overwhelming 72% of respondents said no to government-mandated experimental vaccines — like the COVID-19 vaccines, which the FDA authorized for emergency use to expedite deployment during the pandemic. People age 65 and older were most opposed (77.6%).
4. Should anyone harmed by a vaccine be able to sue the manufacturer, as is the case for almost all other products and services?
Across all age groups, more than half of respondents said vaccine makers should be held legally liable for injuries caused by their products. Responses ranged from a high of 60.8% (45- to 64-year-olds) to a low of 51.3% (65+). Blacks (41.3%) were among the least in favor of holding vaccine makers legally liable for vaccine injuries, while Asians (61.7%) were most in favor.
5. Looking back on it, how would you rate the government’s overall handling of COVID-19?
Overall, only 12.9% of respondents said the government handled the pandemic well. Another 39.2% said it did the best it could. On the flip side, 21.2% of respondents thought the government mishandled the pandemic and 19.6% gave it a failing grade. The youngest respondents (18- to 29-year-olds) gave the government the highest marks — 23.4% believe the government did well and 33.5% said it did the best it could. 30- to 44-year-olds had the lowest opinion of the government’s performance — 47.5% said the government mishandled or failed.
John Zogby Strategies, an independent market research firm, conducted an online national poll of 1,005 registered likely voters for the 2024 general election, with an overall margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2 percentage points. Subgroups exhibit higher error margins. Secure invitations were sent to a random sample of our nationwide panel of approximately 15 million adults via email, text-to-web, and application programming interface or API.
Survey participants were screened based on age, voter registration status and likelihood to vote. Minor weights were applied to ensure that the sample accurately represented the population’s age, education level, gender, political affiliation, race and geographic region.
See more information about the poll or review the complete polling data.
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More than half do not agree with Big Pharma prescriptions,psychotropics and vaccine injuries, does that mean that the other half doesn’t care, or can I put it this way, they like suffering, to get hurt by medicines? Do we live in a world that is half masochist?
These results are demoralizing. It shows that we have so far to go, and given the fact that so many people don't even get what the government just did with SARS-COV2, it's obvious that the bulk of our population have little ability to critically think about their sources of information; how willing they are to trust institutions that have the most flagrant of financial conflicts of interest; how willing they are to shield themselves from information that makes them uncomfortable; how unwilling/incapable they are of learning the details, yet how empowered they are to leverage their fear and ignorance against everyone by approving of forced procedures that kill babies or maim children neurologically and physically for life.