Supermajority of Voters Support Health and Medical Freedom, Poll Shows

News Analysis

The right of individuals to make their own health care decisions is a topic of intense public concern. Proponents of medical freedom argue that no government, business, or other institution can override a person’s ultimate authority over what medicines or vaccines that person chooses to take.

The health freedom movement more generally encompasses the related issues of clean air and water, over-prescription of drugs to children, pesticide use, dangerous food additives, legal immunities granted for vaccine manufacturers, and the right of doctors to speak freely about their opinions without fear of censure or loss of livelihood.

Despite the timeliness of these topics, and the passionate opinions held on them, most major media outlets, polling groups, and political strategists would have us believe that support for medical freedom is very low. On top of that claim, they insist these priorities are “bad politics” that would endanger a candidate in a close race if embraced.

To justify these claims, they point to opinion polls commissioned by established political groups that are not nearly as unhappy with the status quo as the average American is. In this way, polls are used less as a way to capture public opinion than as a tool to shape the policy landscape.

We’ve been subjected to several of these lately. What we’ve lacked is an objective poll that addresses the curiosities everyone has, with plain questions that get to the root of the controversies over health and medical issues.

The Health Freedom Defense Fund and the Brownstone Institute initiated such a poll to find out. This poll, conducted by John Zogby Strategies on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27, has documented remarkable supermajorities in favor of medical and health freedom, with numbers on objective questions exceeding 80 percent.

Polled were 1,000 registered voters, 93.6 percent of whom are definitely going to vote or are very likely to vote. The party breakdown is 37 percent Republican, 36 percent Democrat, and 27 percent independent. The party breakdown shows broad support. The margin of error for overall results is 3.2 percentage points.

Such supermajorities are rare in polling outcomes. (Polling documents are here: 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Strongest areas of agreement (broad majority support):

• Americans have the right to refuse medical treatment generally: 87.9 percent agree (58.8 percent strongly).
• The right to make one’s own medical choices is a basic human right that should always be protected by law: 87.2 percent agree (59.5 percent strongly).
• Doctors should discuss vaccine concerns openly without fear of medical board backlash: 88.1 percent agree (64.5 percent strongly—one of the highest “strongly agree” levels in the survey).
• Health insurance should cover chosen treatments, including holistic/alternative options: 76.1 percent agree (43.6 percent strongly).
• Adults have the right to refuse vaccines: 80.4 percent agree (50.5 percent strongly).
• Personal medical/vaccine decisions should never lead to employment denial: 70.6 percent agree (47.3 percent strongly).
• Parents have a right to refuse vaccines for children/dependents: 65.7 percent agree—still a clear majority, but softer than adult refusal (37.4 percent strongly agree versus 50.5 percent for adults).

On matters of school vaccine mandates, the results show majorities:

• Parents should be able to opt children out of school vaccine mandates: 54.5 percent agree (31.0 percent strongly). Among parents with children under 17, the agreement was 66.7 percent, with 42.8 percent strongly agreeing. To put this staggering result in context, other polls in recent years have concluded that more than 70 percent of the public supports school vaccine mandates.
• College students should not have been expelled for refusing COVID-19 vaccine: 65.4 percent agree (44.4 percent strongly).

On matters related to the COVID-19 era, the poll documents that a strong majority opposes measures in retrospect:

• COVID lockdowns/restrictions caused excessive damage to American society: 61.9 percent agree (35.0 percent strongly) versus 32.0 percent disagree.

On other matters related to medical freedom:

• Childhood vaccine schedule expansion likely contributed to the rise in chronic diseases (among other factors): 48.3 percent agree versus 38.2 percent disagree and 13.6 percent undecided—essentially split, but less than a decade ago, a strong majority said the vaccine schedule is safe, as noted in a Pew Research poll.
• The HHS decision to conduct additional vaccine safety research is justified: 68.6 percent agree versus about 21 percent disagree and 10 percent undecided.
• Investigating the effects of thimerosal (a mercury-based compound), aluminum, polysorbate-80, polyethylene glycol, and formaldehyde used in everyday medical products: 77.8 percent support, 47.8 percent strongly. (This question concerns the ingredients in vaccines without mentioning the word vaccines, yielding even stronger support.)

Overall, the poll shows very strong support (80 percent to 88 percent) for adult medical autonomy, the right to refuse treatment/vaccines as adults, freedom of medical speech for doctors, and protection from employment discrimination based on medical choices.

Majority support remains when the question involves children. More noteworthy, however, is that these results illustrate erosion in public support for school vaccine mandates since 2019, as also seen in other surveys.

Retrospective judgment on COVID-19 policies leans toward viewing them as excessively damaging. Trust in figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and associated public health directives remain low (about 28 percent to 35 percent), with majorities believing guidance prioritized other interests or enabled excessive restrictions.

There is also broad approval for more vaccine safety research. The results reflect an electorate (especially among likely 2028 voters) that is protective of individual medical decision-making rights.

Finally, the poll results demonstrate that Americans will vote for candidates who protect their rights and freedoms, insist on transparency, and hold experts, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies accountable for their actions.

The lessons of this poll are palpable. If people are asked straightforward questions that affect their own health and medical wishes, and those of their families, they clearly come down on the side of freedom, transparency, honesty, and choice. This should not be surprising, because these are core American values on which people are more united than divided.

All we needed was a clear poll with plain questions and no surreptitious agendas to reveal this. That said, such polls are as rare as the supermajorities they document. That’s what makes this poll different from the others. It gets to the heart of what people truly think about the critical issues of our time as they concern medical ethics and human freedom.

From the Brownstone Institute

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.