Rebuilding Vaccine Trust Amid Rising Misinformation and Disease Resurgence: Jamie R. Felzer, MD, MPH

The public’s misconceptions and mistrust of vaccinations are continuing to increase, resulting in decreased vaccination rates and an increase in once-eradicated diseases. Vaccines, evolving guidelines, and public trust were pivotal at the American Thoracic Society 2026 International Conference in Orlando, Florida, from May 17-20, 2026.

One of the panelists from the first education session, “A Clinical Year in Review,” Jamie R. Felzer, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, said in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care^® that the growing misconceptions surrounding vaccines are consistently having to be disproven despite these false claims lacking evidence.

“Science has proven again and again there's no link with vaccines and autism, right?” she said. “We know that the flu vaccine can’t cause the flu, right? It is an inactivated vaccine.”

Another misconception she addressed was co-administration, alluding to the point that patients may believe receiving more than 1 vaccine at the same time may not be safe. However, she encourages clinicians to not only inform their patients on the safety and efficacy of co-administration but also, when given the opportunity, “give all the recommended vaccines at once.”

Yet, despite decades of scientific evidence, the public’s mistrust continues to grow. Felzer even cited that the public’s skepticism of vaccines predated the COVID-19 pandemic. Her proposed solution is to make vaccine guidelines simple, clear, and easily digestible for patients, and to continue to host conversations like those at ATS on ways to inform other clinicians on best practices to rebuild trust in their patients and communities.

“Most of the public and even the scientific community haven't seen some of these diseases because they've been eliminated, and so everyone has selective amnesia and forgets the horrors of these diseases,” Felzer said. “We need to come back to some of the basics, which is vaccines… hand hygiene [and], basic sanitation practices.”