Nearly half of likely voters are not confident that the COVID-19 vaccines are necessary and appropriate for children ages 5-12.
Only 42.2% say they are confident that young children should get the shots, according to a poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group in partnership with the non-profit Convention of States Action.
The survey, conducted Sept. 17 to 19, found 66.8% of Republicans and 54.7% of independents are not confident in COVID-19 vaccines for children 5-12.
A majority of Democrats, 62.5%, say they are confident in COVID-19 vaccines for kids.
“In poll after poll, we see that the American people are fundamentally skeptical about so-called science coming out of Washington, D.C. They see the conflicting information and almost daily shifts in policy, and don’t want their children to be the guinea pigs for a group of bureaucrats who have mismanaged and bungled this crisis from the start,” said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action. “School-based mandates are not going to fly with the public.”
A separate poll published this week found that only 45% of Americans say they trust President Biden to give them correct information on the coronavirus. And only 49% of Americans say they trust the federal government to provide accurate COVID-19 information, down from 54% two weeks ago, according to the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index, conducted between Sept. 24-27.
“Delta and other issues have really undermined the public’s perception,” Cliff Young, president of Ipsos public affairs, told Axios.
The Convention of States Action describes itself as a grassroots network of more than 5 million supporters and volunteers aiming to “restore a culture of self-governance in America and to curtail federal overreach.” The group aims to accomplish its mission using a limited Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments that impose limitations on the size and scope of the federal government.
On Tuesday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced they have submitted COVID-19 vaccine data on children ages 5 to 11 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for initial review. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is approved for people age 16 and older, and has an emergency use authorization for people ages 12 to 15.
The pharmaceutical companies said in a statement they expect to formally request emergency use authorization for children ages 5 to 11 in the coming weeks.
Earlier this month, an FDA advisory panel voted 16-2 against approving booster shots for people 16 to 65, arguing, among other reasons, that there is insufficient data to judge the Pfizer vaccine’s risks to younger groups. The members highlighted the possible increased risk for heart inflammation, or myocarditis, particularly among males ages 16-17.
In July, Dr. Marty Makary argued in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the evidence behind the CDC’s push to vaccinate children is flimsy. A professor at Johns Hopkins University, he noted that at the time, the CDC had counted 335 children under 18 who had died with a COVID-19 diagnosis code in their record. The current figure is more than 439.
“Yet the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition,” he wrote.
Without such information, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided in May that the benefits of two-dose vaccination outweigh the risks for children 12 to 15.
“I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies, and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity,” Makary wrote.
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