More complicated than I thought, part 3

 In January 1957, the Gallup Poll did a survey for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (the March of Dimes), which was concerned about "the extent to which the public has failed to avail itself of the polio vaccine."  It had an open-ended question on what you thought about the vaccine, which they coded into groups.  I collapsed a few of the smaller ones, giving four categories--approval, qualified approval (their example statements were "not 100% effective" and "will be improved in the future"), disapproval (either because it was ineffective or because it was unsafe), and don't know.  Approval was strong for all educational levels.

                                      Approve        Qualified     Disapprove    DK

Not HS grad                      73%                 14%               2%          12%

HS                                     77%                 16%               2%            4%

Some college                    78%                  17%               2%            3%

College grad                     76%                   20%              1%            3%

It also asked whether you had received the vaccine, and if not, whether you definitely planned to get it.  

                                      Already           Plan to       Don't plan      DK

Not HS grad                       7%                38%               31%          25%

HS                                     12%                44%              23%           20%

Some college                    20%                 41%              26%           14%

College grad                     19%                  42%             24%            14%

 Despite the similarity in views of the vaccine, more educated people were far more likely to have actually had it.  

Another question was "if there are enough polio shots for everybody, do you think all young adults should have themselves vaccinated against polio--or do you think it doesn't matter very much?"  Almost all of the people who had already been vaccinated or said that they definitely intended to said yes, but so did 73% of the people who didn't plan to and 82% of the people who weren't sure.  

Many contemporary discussions of the Covid vaccine assume that people who haven't gotten vaccinated by this point are firmly opposed to getting vaccinated, and go on to argue about whether that reflects mindless partisanship or "a reasonable uncertainty and wariness after a year of shifting public-health rhetoric, blunders and misleading messaging" (to quote Ross Douthat).    Of course, there is more outright opposition today, because Covid has become a political issue (the 1957 survey didn't ask any questions about politics, not even basic party identification).  But I think that the patterns found in 1957 are still relevant today--there are also people who think they should, but haven't gotten around to it, or who don't have strong feelings but would be willing.  Less educated people are more likely to fall into these groups.  

In my first post, I said I thought that the media "used to be more deferential to the authorities and less inclined to report news that might promote doubts."  I looked at New York Times stories in April-June 1955, as the story about the Cutter vaccine was developing, and found that was true to an even greater extent than I expected--the stories on the potential issues with the Cutter vaccine seemed to go out of their way to downplay the concerns.  A piece in the ancestor of the Sunday Review section about the withdrawal of the Cutter vaccine said "Unfounded rumors of black market operations are rife, the reputation of a trustworthy drug house is damaged, and parents throughout the country are thrown into a state of alarm."  It went on to say that the "few cases of polio . . . among the 300,000 who were vaccinated with the Cutter preparation" may have represented children who were already infected.  A few days later there was a little story about the California Medical Association calling for a thorough investigation   It mentioned that their statement "amounted to almost 100 percent disapproval of the handling of the vaccine program" but didn't expand on that--the whole story was only five sentences long.  A few weeks later, after a federal commission had recommended changes in the program, another Review piece treated the issue as closed, and framed it as scientists stepping in to sort out problems cause by blundering politicians:  "whatever had happened, the scientists were confident that it need not happen again--if the government would put their proposals into effect.  They won.  ... These moves are expected to go a long way towards raising public confidence in the safety of the Salk vaccine."  One thing that struck me is that they treated "the scientists" as a unified body--they just quoted the official commission, with no comments from outside experts.  There are a lot of criticisms that can be made of the media today, but I don't think I'd want to go back to this kind of coverage. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]