Once the lockdowns from COVID-19 began, a new normal of distrusting America’s public health officials started. Dr. Anthony Fauci quickly became the most famous and controversial physician in America. At the start of the pandemic, having the responsibility of communicating information and data with the entire country, his advice was trusted by most Americans; a Kaiser Family Foundation survey showed that in December 2020, 90 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of Republicans trusted him.
As the pandemic dragged on, distrust began to grow, especially among Republicans. An April 2022 KFF survey showed 86 percent of Democrats trusted Dr. Fauci, meanwhile only 25 percent of Republicans did. Similarly, the same KFF surveys show Republicans’ trust in the CDC dropped from 57 percent in 2020 to 41 percent in 2022.
This distrust began to influence vaccination rates and state vaccine laws, perception of medical doctors, and future public health political appointments. For example, vaccination rates have been in a continuous decline since COVID-19, states such as Florida and Idaho are attempting to remove vaccine mandates from schools, Gallup polls show trust in doctors is the lowest since the 1990s, and controversial vaccine skeptics such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are now among the most influential and powerful people in health care.
While Republicans distrusted public health when Dr. Fauci was in charge, it is now the Democrats’ turn to be skeptical of a prominent public health official, with only 14 percent of Democrats approving of the job Mr. Kennedy is doing. Similarly, the latest drama revolves around Dr. Casey Means, who has been nominated for Surgeon General despite not finishing her medical residency. Former Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams wrote that, “…it is incomprehensible that the Senate is even considering a nominee for this role who lacks any active license and has never practiced unsupervised.”
A clear pattern is emerging: Democrats do not like the health officials Republicans appoint and vice versa. This renders public health messaging from the federal government as useless for countless doctors and patients. This raises the question of who within health care can be trusted to serve the American people.
Although many Americans distrust doctors as a group, most trust the doctors they know personally. A KFF survey shows 92 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of Republicans trust their own doctor. As a final-year medical student who has completed clinical rotations in multiple states and countries, this mirrors my own observations of the patients I see: The overwhelming majority are interested in and value the advice or care they are receiving. I have even met countless anti-vaccine patients who value their pro-vaccine doctor’s opinion on topics unrelated to vaccines, which allows for other health care concerns to be addressed and also opens the door to revisiting immunization conversations in the future.
Undoubtedly, the doctor-patient relationship is healthier than the American public’s with their health officials. One-on-one conversations also have the benefit of addressing the individual patients’ needs. Positions like the Surgeon General face an inherent predicament of having to give broad medical advice in a field that does not have a one-size-fits-all approach. Similarly, many people involved in public health are not medical doctors, such as epidemiologists, and their perspectives, while valuable, differ from those of practicing physicians.
Although public health in the United States has had many victories throughout the years, such as the elimination of smallpox and cigarette smoking reduction, the shifting of messaging and leadership is not serving the American people well and many are rejecting it. Since the federal government and social media influencers have been shown to be unreliable, patients should be reminded that their health care needs can be best addressed by seeing a licensed physician. Similarly, doctors should take pride in the fact that their patients still value their medical advice.
Myles Deal is a physician.
