UpFront

Why are US parents still hesitant to vaccinate children?

‘The vaccine is a better bet,’ says Dr Francis Collins, the director of the US National Institutes of Health.

According to recent polls, the large majority of American parents are still hesitant to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 – against the advice of most doctors and despite vaccines for children aged 5-11 being fully approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill asks the director of the US National Institutes of Health, Dr Francis Collins: What’s behind the lingering doubts about vaccines? And what impact could they have, not just on children but on the wider US population?