I’m an Infectious Disease Doctor. Here’s the Problem with “Doing Your Own Research” on Vaccines

6 min readAs an infectious disease doctor, I’ve had a busy summer fielding concerns from my friends and family who aren’t in the medical field. In the past few months, I’ve answered their questions on everything from rare diseases like hantavirus, Ebola, and Cyclospora to more common (but still dangerous) infections like salmonella and measles. I’m happy to do so, of course, and it comes with the territory. A headline-making pathogen means more questions (Yes, I’ve started eating salads again)—as does back-to-school season, when parents manage annual physicals, vaccine requirements, and flu shots. But this year I’ve noticed something alarming: vaccines feel more up for debate than ever.Lately, I’ve encountered both patients and casual contacts voicing concerns. Even if parents don’t flat-out reject vaccines, many will express a desire to delay or space out childhood vaccines. Others want to “wait and see” whether they feel a given shot is needed (to be clear, if you wait and see if a shot is needed, it may be too late). It’s not uncommon for me to hear “Thanks, we’re good for now,” when I bring up any given vaccine due date or schedule.“It’s not uncommon for me to hear ‘Thanks, we’re good for now.’”These conversations mirror what national data tells us: vaccine avoidance is at an all-time high. Non-medical kindergarten vaccine exemptions are rising rapidly, doubling even just since the COVID-19 pandemic. National flu shot data shows a similar pandemic-era downtrend, with only ~42 percent of adults and 50 percent of children receiving the 2024-2025 vaccine. Childhood measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage has fallen to 92.4 percent, below the 95 percent threshold needed to achieve herd immunity.The Privilege of ChoiceAnti-vaccine discourse is so widespread these days that it can sometimes feel impossible to ignore. I understand how people might think that in the face of uncertainty, doing nothing (in this case, “waiting and seeing”) is better than risking something with possible unwelcome outcomes. But I wish people acknowledged that choice is easier to make in the U.S., where the spread of many vaccine-preventable infections remains relatively low compared to several other countries. The paradox of protection is that we enjoy that luxury because of modern vaccine successes.I know well-meaning parents want to protect their children—but denying evidence-based care is not the way forward. Doing so opens the door to measles and other diseases like pertussis, chickenpox, mumps, and beyond. Not to mention, if you or your child do get sick, skipping vaccination raises the risk of severe disease complications.It doesn’t help that vaccine policy and messaging have changed so drastically in recent years. Our current Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has long opposed mandatory vaccines, and has also overseen numerous developments reducing public access to unbiased information on vaccine safety and efficacy. This April, The New York Times reported that the acting head of the CDC blocked publication of a study showing COVID vaccination reduced the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations last winter by more than half. The following month, the Times also reported that the FDA withheld publication of multiple peer-reviewed, large-scale studies that supported the safety of COVID and shingles vaccines.This represents unprecedented scientific censoring by political appointees overseeing major public health institutions like the CDC, FDA, and NIH—all of which operate under Kennedy’s HHS office. The acting CDC head and top FDA officials, respectively, deemed these studies essentially not rigorous enough, calling them “inaccurate” and failing to meet the agency’s high standards. Yet the same administration simultaneously promotes research highlighting vaccine concerns that veteran scientists do question the rigor of.Evan PikeMorgan Goheen, MD, PhD, works at the Yale School of Medicine as a research scientist and board-certified Infectious Disease physician, and is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project in partnership with Yale University. The views expressed here are her own and not those of the University.Beyond the literature, it’s also more difficult than ever to know which experts to listen to. In June 2025, Kennedy fired the panel of experts responsible for determining CDC vaccine guidelines and attempted to drastically reduce the number of childhood vaccines that the CDC recommends. A federal judge has since blocked the implementation of his replacement panel's vaccine recommendations, highlighting that fewer than half of the new panelists appeared to have “any meaningful experience in vaccines.” And in the latest development, Trump issued an executive order continuing to call for a reduced childhood vaccine schedule as well as splitting up the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. (This is despite no evidence of harm in its combined MMR form and experts’ alarm about resultant delayed protection, reduced uptake, and increased societal costs if broken up. Manufacturers also do not offer these individual vaccines in the U.S.)Unsurprisingly, a recent study confirms that shifts in such messaging have undermined trust in vaccines. Kennedy himself has suggested parents “do your own research”—a phrase that has become increasingly tied to the anti-vaccine movement.Getty/WH IllustrationBut what does that mean in today's landscape, when half of American adults under 50 now get health information from influencers or podcasters? A 2024 study indicated nearly two-thirds of content creators do not thoroughly verify facts before posting. For creators who rely on views for income, it makes financial sense to lean into sensationalism. A.I. and social media algorithms compound this danger, making it easy to be fed anti-vax doubt using personal anecdotes and unsupported claims and harder to find level-headed and nuanced discussions about evidence-based research.Where Should Parents Look for Advice? The best thing people can do is listen to advice from doctors and scientific consensus. Where individual doctors’ opinions may vary, look to vetted physician societies for guidance. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America maintain advocacy for established vaccines. These organizations also just released their own recommendations for annual flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines based on independent review. Conversations with individual physicians also remain invaluable. These providers know you and your child’s medical history—random social media influencers do not.“These providers know you and your child’s medical history—random social media influencers do not.”Any blanket statement about vaccines is problematic. Not all vaccines are meant for everyone. For example, pregnant women and infants under 12 months should not receive live injections like the MMR or varicella shots. And yes, some people may experience side effects, such as injection-site soreness and short-lived flu-like symptoms. Complications such as anaphylaxis or neurologic inflammation exist but remain extremely rare (as in, 1-2 cases per million). Febrile seizures in children are slightly more common (a few cases per several thousand, depending on the vaccine), but a fever-induced seizure is far more likely from an actual infection than from a vaccine.But these comparatively small exceptions shouldn’t take away from the big picture: Society’s health is immensely better off because of vaccines. They have saved over an estimated 150 million lives worldwide in the past 52 years—a number comparable to almost half of today’s U.S. population. The illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths from childhood vaccines in America alone that we have avoided because of them have saved $540 billion in direct costs and $2.7 trillion in societal costs in the past 32 years.Vaccines work best with high uptake. The more people vaccinated, the fewer susceptible hosts there are to allow a disease to spread. The fewer susceptible hosts, the more those who cannot themselves receive the vaccine (such as the immunocompromised or very young) are protected. The more our society elevates anti-vax individualism, the more we all lose.While I spend the academic year stateside, much of my work also takes me abroad. I’ve spent over five years living in multiple countries throughout Africa, working to address infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV, and trachoma. Through this time abroad, I’ve learned not to ask certain questions—for instance, inquiring why a colleague my age was limping and whether something happened recently, when the answer is that they had polio as a child. (Until concerted regional vaccine campaigns took hold in the mid-1990s, 75,000 polio paralysis cases occurred in African children annually. In the U.S., thanks largely to greater vaccine availability and access, the last wild polio transmission occurred in 1979.)“For the mothers debating vaccines here in the U.S., please consider that elsewhere in the world, there is a mother who cannot comprehend taking that risk.”The naïveté around vaccine avoidance has made me starkly aware of our privilege and how we don’t even have to consider diseases like childhood polio leaving a lifelong mark. In this context, it’s even harder to explain that people in the U.S. have the luxury of refusing vaccines without penalty—for now.For the mothers debating vaccines here in the U.S., please consider that elsewhere in the world, there is a mother who cannot comprehend taking that risk.Morgan Goheen, MD, PhD, works at the Yale School of Medicine as a research scientist and board-certified Infectious Disease physician, and she is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project in partnership with Yale University. The views expressed here are her own and not those of the University.Carina Hsieh, MPH, is the deputy features editor of Women’s Health. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience working in media and has covered everything from beauty, fashion, travel, lifestyle, pets, to health. She began her career as an intern in the fashion closet at Cosmopolitan where she worked her way up to Senior Sex & Relationships Editor. While covering women’s health there, she discovered her passion for health service journalism and took a break to get her Masters in Public Health. Post-grad school, she worked as a freelance writer and as The Daily Beast’s first Beauty, Health, and Wellness Reporter. Carina is an alum of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Yale School of Public Health. She and her French Bulldog, Bao Bao, split their time between Brooklyn and Connecticut. She enjoys reformer Pilates, (slow) running, and smelling the fancy toiletries in boutique fitness class locker rooms.