Meridiano

Add Article

No Image Available

Article Details

Title

Article: Americans trust Fauci over RFK Jr. and career scientists over Trump officials

Impact Score

5 / 10

AI Summary (Processed Content)

Anti-vaccine activist and current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds significantly less public confidence than infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, according to a national survey. The poll found 54% of respondents expressed confidence in Fauci, compared to only 38% for Kennedy.

The survey reveals a clear public divide, with higher confidence placed in career scientists at federal health agencies than in the political leaders of those agencies. Specifically, 67% expressed confidence in career scientists, while only 43% had confidence in the agencies' leaders.

The main topics covered are public confidence in health officials, the comparison between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Anthony Fauci, and the distinction between trust in career scientists versus political appointees.

Original URL

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/americans-trust-fauci-over-rfk-jr-and-career-scientists-over-trump-officials/

Source Feed

Ars Technica

Published Date

2026-03-06 17:15

Fetched Date

2026-03-06 14:30

Processed Date

2026-03-06 14:31

Embedding Status

Present

Cluster ID

Not Clustered

Raw Extracted Content

Anti-vaccine activist and current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has worked hard to villainize infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, even writing a conspiracy-laden book lambasting the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
But a year into the job as the country’s top health official, Kennedy—who has no background in medicine, science, or public health—still holds less sway with Americans than the esteemed physician-scientist.
In a nationally representative survey conducted in February by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, 54 percent of respondents said they had confidence in Fauci, while only 38 percent had confidence in Kennedy. Breaking those supporters down further, 25 percent of respondents said they were “very confident” in Fauci, while only 9 percent said the same for Kennedy.
Overall, the survey found a clear divide between the confidence in Kennedy and other Trump administration officials and that of career scientists and medical associations.
Among federal agencies, 67 percent said they had confidence in career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. But only 43 percent said they had confidence in the leaders of those agencies.
“The public is differentiating the trustworthiness of career scientists in the CDC, NIH, and FDA from that of the leaders of those agencies and recalling substantially higher confidence in the guidance that former director Fauci provided than that offered by Secretary Kennedy or Dr. Oz,” Ken Winneg, APPC’s managing director of survey research, said in a statement.