Joe Rogan recently had RFK Jr. on his show, where RFK summarized the remarkable things he and his team have accomplished with the president’s support in challenging vested interests that profit off keeping us sick. As such, for those of you who want to know what MAHA is actually doing, I would highly recommend watching it.
Unfortunately, the segment confirmed something I was quite worried about: RFK never once discussed vaccines, even in numerous instances when it would have been the most natural subject to raise. Based on this and many other shifts I’ve noticed, I am relatively certain the Trump administration received polling data concluding the vaccine subject needed to be avoided until after the midterms. In this article, I will provide the data that shows why this is a mistake and the key steps we can take to correct it.
Note: Much in the same way they are angling toward “safe” political health topics, within the integrative medicine field, one of my longstanding frustrations has been that most practitioners prefer “safe” remedies (e.g., supplements and herbs) but avoid the potent “controversial” therapies (e.g., the umbrella remedies like DMSO that get results for a wide range of incurable illnesses).
Doctored Data
For decades, a fairly simple formula has been used to control the populace:
• Enshrine chosen parties as credible sources.
• Buy out each credible source.
• Have each bought out a credible source to reinforce the credibility of the other co-opted sources until a monopoly is established.
• Have the credible sources work in unison to amplify chosen messages or psychological campaigns that support vested interests.
• Prohibit credible sources from airing anything that threatens vested interests.
• Have all the smaller cogs in the system be pressured to conform to the chosen narratives, and ideally, to identify with them and attack anyone who challenges them, so everyone stays in line.
Because of how vast and interwoven it is, I long thought this framework could never be broken, and that there would hence be only a small portion of the population who saw through it.
However, the internet broke that monopoly on truth — particularly once Elon Musk bought Twitter — providing a way to prevent the establishment from transforming the internet into a landscape of gatekeepers (e.g., Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia) that controlled most people’s access to online information and “curated” all of it so only approved messages were seen.
A lot of my life has hence revolved around observing how this cruel formula is implemented within the mainstream media and scientific press so that I can:
• Be more equipped to discern what is true and what is false.
• Predict the future, as the formulaic step-wise nature of how this propaganda is implemented often is a “tell” for what will be enacted in the future (e.g., this is how I correctly predicted most of what was going to happen with COVID-19 at the very end of 2019).
• Look for loopholes in the matrix where truth is able to leak out and seize them (e.g., the censorship within mainstream scientific literature was gradually phased in a few decades ago, and largely constrained to Western countries, so a large part of “The Forgotten Side of Medicine” is digging up research outside those bubbles).
COVID Vaccine Polling
Since the scientific literature refuses to publish validated data challenging pharmaceutical interests, critical data on COVID vaccine injuries were largely absent from credible academic sources. This is how they convinced people vaccine injuries are “rare” — despite injuries being frequent and sometimes severe. Eventually, Charlie Kirk figured out a way to bypass this blockade by polling his crowd directly.
In December 2021, Charlie Kirk showed a crowd severe COVID vaccine injuries and deaths affected every single person there, yet “we’re not even allowed to talk about it.” Four years later, it’s still being buried. Why? pic.twitter.com/DyKThO8hwF
— A Midwestern Doctor (@MidwesternDoc) March 9, 2026
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Following this, Steve Kirsch1 and his vaccine safety research foundation hired polling firms to directly survey the public.2 In 2022, of those vaccinated:3
In 2023, Professor Mark Skidmore hired Dynata to survey 2,840 respondents and found 15% of vaccinated had a vaccine injury (13% of which were severe), and 22% knew someone with a severe vaccine injury.4 His taboo paper was retracted, and he was subject to an ethics investigation that eventually cleared him.
In 2024, a Kirsch-commissioned poll found 12.5% to 20.3% of vaccinated respondents were injured, with two-thirds categorizing their injury as “serious” or “very serious.” Despite reporting higher injury rates, Democrat respondents were far more likely to believe the vaccine was safe and effective (83.62%) than Republicans (44.49%) or Independents (51.81%).5
As no one wanted to touch this issue, only one polling organization independently investigated this: Rasmussen Reports. For American adults, they found:
• July 2021 — 32% believed public health officials were lying about vaccine safety.6
• December 2022 — 34% of vaccinated reported minor side effects; 7% reported major side effects.7
• January 2023 — 49% believed vaccine side effects have likely caused a significant number of unexplained deaths; 28% personally knew someone whose death may have been caused by the vaccine.8
• January 2023 — 57% wanted Congress to investigate how the CDC handled assessing vaccine safety.9
• March 2023 — 11% believed a member of their household died from COVID-19, while 10% believed a member of their household died from a side effect of the vaccine.10
• September 2023 — 47% did not believe the vaccines were safe and 34% did not believe they were effective. Democrats were less likely to believe the vaccines were unsafe (14% D vs. 51% R) or ineffective (17% D vs. 57% R).11
• November 2023 — 24% personally knew someone they believed died from a COVID vaccine; 69% of those would likely join a class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies.12
• January 2024 — 53% believe vaccine side effects have likely caused a significant number of unexplained deaths and 24% personally knew someone whose death may have been caused by COVID-19 vaccines.13
• September 2024 — 55% believe vaccine side effects have likely caused a significant number of unexplained deaths — including 30% who say it’s very likely.14
• November 2025 — 26% reported minor side effects; 10% reported major side effects; 46% believe vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.15
In short, the data shows you aren’t crazy — the majority of people are seeing exactly the same thing you are. One of the best data compilations I’ve seen that puts this into perspective was a March 2023 estimate Ed Dowd produced from available data sources.16 This deliberately conservative estimate showed:
Vaccine Polling
There are limits to what propaganda can do. Once enough people are injured, it’s no longer possible to keep gaslighting them. The magnitude of these injuries was reflected by an unprecedented loss of trust in the medical industry:
• A JAMA survey of 443,455 American adults found trust in physicians and hospitals decreased substantially in every sociodemographic group, from 71.5% in April 2020 to 40.1% in January 2024.17
• A recurring Gallup Poll found trust in the pharmaceutical industry has greatly declined:18
In parallel, support for vaccine mandates significantly decreased due to the COVID response:19
In November 2025, Pew found this loss of trust was much more common in Republican voters:20
A parallel Pew poll found only 57% had high confidence in childhood vaccine effectiveness (45% R vs. 71% D), 44% were confident in their safety testing (29% R vs. 63% D), and only 41% fully trusted the CDC vaccine schedule (27% R vs. 58% D).21 Similar results were found by a KFF tracking poll:22
Along with one this year:23
Note: This 2026 poll also found a loss of trust in the MMR, COVID, and Flu vaccines.24
Real Voter Priorities
To prepare for the midterms, MAHA allies commissioned three polls which all found a supermajority of voters support health and medical freedom. Here’s what the first, from John Zogby Strategies, found about vaccines:25
The second, of 1,000 likely voters by Rosetta Stone, found similar results:26
This poll found support for the MAHA agenda (59.1%) was higher than for MAGA (45.8%) or America First (54.4%), but approval of what Trump and Kennedy are actually doing on children’s health is much lower (44.1%).
This indicates that MAHA is the party’s strongest midterm issue but what’s being done isn’t being effectively communicated, or that RFK’s base feels disappointed he hasn’t accomplished more on vaccines.
A February 2026 poll from FLA found MAHA was the most effective issue to flip someone’s vote — a key bloc chose the generic Democrat by 5:1, but once given a Republican focused on removing toxins from food and reducing overmedicating children, chose the Republican nearly 2:1.27 Candidates championing reducing the vaccine schedule also became much more favorable to voters:
Additionally, that poll showed the majority of voters have significant concerns over the current vaccine program.
All of these polls (along with the far more extensive non-vaccine MAHA data I did not include here) touch upon a simple fact. People get that they are unhealthy, and the system profits off their sickness. That’s why so many people are yearning for a change, and simultaneously why, until now, virtually no politician has been willing to threaten vested interests by stopping the mass poisoning of society.
It’s absurd that that’s been our status quo, but I am also grateful that, due to an unlikely alignment of fate, we finally had a political revolution that made politicians interested in pursuing the issues we care about.
Lastly, many polls are not accurate due to poor methodology or hidden agendas. For example, consider this poll conducted in December by FLA that found MAHA is popular except for vaccines,28 and that pursuing that issue will likely cost Congressional seats:
Unlike every other poll showing strong support for vaccine safety, this outlier was promoted by the mainstream media — the New York Times published an article that framed it as just one in five Americans supporting rolling back the CDC vaccine schedule.29 Jeffrey Tucker dissected the poll, noting that the sponsor was never identified, the wording was designed to elicit pro-vaccine responses, and the results wildly contradicted every other poll.30
Tucker concluded this poll was almost certainly sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry to steer Republican leadership away from the vaccine issue.
The COVID-19 Debacle
For all of human history, a common tactic in military campaigns (channelizing) has been to attack an enemy on one or more sides so they retreat to the side not being attacked and end up in a strategically disadvantageous position (e.g., they are corralled into an area where they are defenseless from an ambush).
My longstanding contention is that Trump’s handling of COVID-19 cost him the 2020 election — lessons that explain his much harsher stance on the pharmaceutical industry in his second term. It cost him the election because:
• The economy was strong and Trump was polling favorably pre-COVID. Once it started, COVID destroyed his key edge, reframed his presidency around pandemic failures the media promoted daily, and set the stage for mass mail-in voting.
• The policies imposed — masking, distancing, mass testing, lockdowns, and no treatments except remdesivir — were unproven and arguably made things worse. A sensible approach would have prioritized early treatments and cheap UV lights in buildings, restricting extreme measures to high-risk populations like nursing home patients.
Based on Peter Navarro’s memoir31 and Scott Atlas M.D.’s memoir,32 I believe these failures were ultimately Trump’s fault:
• Navarro warned early that COVID would become a disaster without proactive action; his concerns were dismissed.
• Trump and Navarro pushed hydroxychloroquine for early treatment, but the federal health bureaucracy — particularly FDA chief Stephen Hahn, who was rewarded with a lucrative Moderna position upon leaving — continually sabotaged their efforts.33
• Each time Trump promoted a treatment besides remdesivir, the media went hysterical, causing the White House to retreat from other promising therapies.
• The administration was corralled into betting everything on a vaccine at “Warp Speed.” However, at the last moment, Pfizer delayed their vaccine until after the election to help Biden.34
Atlas specifically highlighted that:
• Fauci and Birx originated the absurd COVID policies. Shielded by media prestige and the White House’s lack of medical knowledge, they went unchallenged — until Atlas was brought in as a counterweight.
• At meetings, Atlas was aghast that Fauci and Birx couldn’t grasp basic medical logic. Whenever he gained traction on a policy change, he believed Fauci leaked it to the press, triggering media hysteria that caused the White House to reverse course.
• Trump privately said his gut told him the lockdowns were harming America, but his advisors “did not want to rock the boat” before the election — and he did not fire Birx or change course, a choice he later admitted to Atlas was a colossal mistake.
Note: Shortly after leaving the Task Force, Birx became chief medical advisor for a company selling UV light air purifiers — the very technology that could have made lockdowns unnecessary.35
Lastly, immediately after winning in 2016, Trump, a longtime vaccine skeptic, asked RFK Jr. to chair a presidential vaccine safety commission.36 It never happened — Bill Gates took credit for killing it.37 I believe the decision came from administration lobbying rather than Trump himself.38 Had that commission gone forward, it is unlikely Trump would have gone all in on COVID vaccines; a path that lost the 2020 election.
Internal Polling
The current war in Iran has the potential to be one of the most impactful events of our lifetime. Over the last week I’ve spoken to people from many different backgrounds and found wildly varying perspectives — suggesting this is not a “90-10” issue. Recent polls confirm this:
• CNN/SSRS (Feb 28 to March 1) — 41% approve, 59% disapprove.39
• Reuters/Ipsos (Feb 28 to March 1) — 27% approve, 43% disapprove, 29% unsure.40
• NPR/PBS/Marist (March 2 to 4) — 44% approve, 56% oppose.41
• YouGov (March 3) — 36% approve, 49% disapprove, 15% unsure.42
In a segment titled “Who is Manipulating Donald Trump” from his show, Tucker Carlson revealed that he has flown to Washington, D.C., three times in the past month to personally urge President Trump against going to war with Iran. Despite his efforts.
Carlson noted that even… pic.twitter.com/53HOSI8kCq
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) March 6, 2026
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Tucker Carlson, who’s repeatedly asked Trump to not invade Iran, recently shared that when he tried to convince Trump to call his initial results a win and withdraw, his contact told him not to bother: Trump is being shown internal polling claiming this is a “90-10 issue,” reinforced by mainstream news coverage suggesting overwhelming public support. Carlson, in turn, questioned the accuracy of that polling.
I am almost certain something very similar is happening and Trump (or his staffers) are being shown internal polling suggesting vaccine support is near “90-10,” leading to a conclusion that the issue must be dropped until after the midterms. This is a mistake for several reasons:
• Just as Trump was channelized by the media into counterproductive COVID policies, he is again being pushed by a hysterical media and medical establishment to abandon the vaccine issue entirely — while being corralled toward “safe” health topics that draw no acrimonious pushback.
• All available data shows broad public support for reducing the CDC schedule, investigating vaccine safety, and rescinding mandates. The polls Trump has received appear to be concocted to push him off the issue — especially after he shocked the medical industry by speaking out against childhood hepatitis B vaccination and cutting the mandatory childhood vaccine schedule in half.
• Those firmly committed to vaccines are also typically firmly opposed to Trump’s presidency. There are no meaningful electoral benefits to crafting policies that demographic favors.
• Polls show dialing back core issues is costing Trump immense support.43 His 2024 victory was largely due to MAHA voters tipping the election; demoralizing that constituency — for many of whom vaccines are their No. 1 issue — is likely to backfire.
• Delaying 8 months stifles what can ultimately be accomplished. The pharmaceutical industry’s strategy is always to stall, so nothing meaningfully shifts before 2028 when it can all be reversed.
In short, changing federal vaccine policy is essentially impossible without the president directly ordering it and resisting all external pressure. Due to his own negative experiences with vaccines and his headstrong nature, Trump did just that — and he is probably the only president we will see in our lifetimes with that unique confluence of traits. Because of how much institutional resistance exists to questioning the religion of vaccines, this window cannot be squandered.
What Can We Do?
For the first time, people are openly discussing the dangers of vaccination — and rather than being a pariah, you frequently encounter others who support your position. That is a profound shift. The most important thing we can do is continue making those around us aware of the dangers of vaccination, since if most of the electorate refuses to vaccinate, policy ultimately has to follow. In the immediate term, actionable steps are needed to utilize the window we have:
• The Trump administration responds to sufficient public pressure. Once I finish my current project (I am almost done manually going through all of the millions of DMSO studies that have been published), I plan to bring much more attention to vaccine injuries on 𝕏 — I can’t do it alone, so please do the same. Others are already acting: after RFK Jr. appeared on Joe Rogan, Aaron Siri followed with a pointed discussion of why the current vaccine paradigm is so dysfunctional.
• A petition demanding “COVID Justice” has 26,000 signatures and is growing. Much of the political leadership is hoping the COVID vaccine injury debacle will simply fade away. We cannot allow that. Please consider signing it.
• ACIP will meet March 18 to 19 and will be specifically discussing COVID-19 vaccine injuries. Until March 12 it is possible to leave public comments (here). Please do so, especially if you or someone you know was injured by the COVID vaccines — ACIP is taking on powerful forces and needs public support.44,45
Most importantly, because the media’s entire attention is on Iran, there is a very unique window to bring attention to this matter without the typical coordinated blowback.
Conclusion
One of the things I never ceased to be amazed by is how deeply the medical community, media, and political class defend vaccines — whether due to irrational religious belief in them, the fact that the belief ties together so many other belief systems our society revolves around, or the fact that vaccination (due to its high rate of chronic injury) sets people up to be customers for life of the medical industry.
Consider that virtually every MAHA confirmation session has revolved around pressuring nominees to assert their allegiance to vaccination rather than addressing any pressing health issues — most recently with Casey Means.46
All the senators openly admit loss of trust in medicine and vaccines is a major problem, yet believe the solution is to browbeat someone we trust into endorsing vaccines — demonstrating they can’t comprehend our beliefs are derived through critical thinking rather than following an authority figure.
Ultimately, I believe many problems with vaccines result from the widespread faith that exists in them, vaccines being mandated, and the lack of legal liability for manufacturers. The fact that someone can be mandated to take something and then have no recourse for the resulting injury is grossly unjust. The ultimate solution is to remove liability protection for vaccines that patients did not want to take but took under a mandate.
If someone is forced to take a vaccine and gets injured, the party that forced them must be held responsible. I believe the members of ACIP see this too — which is why their upcoming meeting will specifically focus on the COVID vaccine injuries every policymaker is trying to forget.
We have a great opportunity here if we seize it, and I thank each of you for supporting this paradigm shift on vaccines.
Author’s Note: This is an abridged version of a longer article that goes into greater detail about the above points and the mishaps which happened within the White House during COVID-19. That article and its additional references can be read here. Additionally, a companion article which shows the data childhood vaccinations make a myriad of chronic childhood illnesses 3 to 10 times as common and ways to identify vaccine injuries can be read here.
A Note from Dr. Mercola About the Author
A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician from the Midwest and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. I appreciate their exceptional insight on a wide range of topics and I’m grateful to share them. I also respect AMD’s desire to remain anonymous since AMD is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD’s work, be sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack.
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