Vivek Murthy Quotes

I talked to lots of people who are vaccine-hesitant, and I actually was one myself until I got further into this project, and most of them actually are in my demographic: so well-educated people with advanced degrees who are upper middle-class and have read quite a bit on the subject.

I think that people's resistance to vaccination isn't going to disappear until we address some of the nonmedical reasons for that resistance and people's discomfort and distrust of the government. That's bigger than what most medical professionals can handle.

What I saw when I was doing research is that in pursuit of a middle ground, people will kind of split the difference between the two extremes that they're hearing. And I think what's problematic is that people are seeing vaccinating on schedule, on time, as an extreme position.

I think a lot of parents who are smart, well-read - they're the ones who are choosing not to vaccinate. And oftentimes, those who may not be as well-read - they are vaccinating. So to say you just have a bunch of crackpots who are choosing not to do this to their children, I just don't think that's actually true.

I don't care if people get angry about that, believing the rubbish that vaccinations cause trouble or make the child worse or something. That's not what I believe. I think it's important for me to say.

Why do people refuse to vaccinate their children against measles or whooping cough? In many cases, because they have never seen measles and have no idea what it might do.

I think public awareness of how good vaccines are for kids and how they are good for public health is a great idea.

Vaccines don't cause autism. Vaccines, instead, prevent disease. Vaccines have wiped out a score of formerly deadly childhood diseases. Vaccine skepticism has helped to bring some of those diseases back from near extinction.

On the pro-vaccine side - and not everyone does this, but I saw it enough for it to make me really uncomfortable - is a tendency to accuse people who are wary of vaccination of being stupid and not understanding science.

Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them. It's a simple message parents need to keep hearing.

People think they're making individual decisions for themselves and their family not to get vaccinated. It's not just an individual choice - you're a hazard to society.

If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.

There are pockets of liberal, affluent America where parents don't want their kids vaccinated.

I'm very pro vaccine. I get all six of my kids vaccinated. I believe vaccines save millions of lives, and people ought to be getting vaccinated.

I don't want to see a weakening of guns laws or the relaxation of vaccinations.

I am absolutely not in favor of any compulsory vaccinations. Vaccination against coronavirus should absolutely not be mandatory.

Information's right at our fingertips, but so is what you want to believe. It's the classic thing of someone Googling 'autism vaccines' - they'll find what they're looking for, depending on what they think. You'll find lots of people who are just bolstering what they already think, bolstering their cultural attitude.

I would certainly use my voice to try and avoid anything that undermines confidence, so that parents are using vaccines fully.

One of the mysteries of hep B immunization is that vaccinating only 'high risk' groups, which was the original public health strategy, did not bring down rates of infection.

I think the media spends a lot of time fooling itself.

It doesn't seem to matter how often vaccines are proved safe or supplements are shown to offer nothing of value. When people don't like facts, they ignore them.

I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apparatus behind it all to push it on us through fear.

You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can't get her to come and get them then they won't work.

You can't save kids just with vaccines.

I'm very much in favor of vaccinations, and I've been very vocal about that because it's insane to forgo this.