FDA Policy/General

Public Trusts FDA Career Scientists Over Agency Leadership

Americans express significantly greater confidence in career scientists at federal health agencies than in the leaders who oversee them, according to a new national survey that also shows declining trust in the FDA and other federal health regulators over the past two years.

The survey, released 3/5 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, found that 67% of U.S. adults say they are confident that career scientists working at agencies including the FDA are providing trustworthy information about public health. By contrast, only 43% say they have confidence in the leaders of those agencies.

The results highlight a widening credibility gap between agency staff scientists and political leadership, according to the survey’s authors.

“The public is differentiating the trustworthiness of career scientists in the CDC, NIH, and FDA from that of the leaders of those agencies,” said Ken Winneg, managing director of survey research at the Annenberg center.

While FDA still commands majority confidence among Americans, the survey found that trust in the agency has fallen steadily since 2024. In the current poll, 62% of respondents said they are confident the FDA provides trustworthy information about matters concerning public health. That figure is down from 67% in February 2025 and 74% in February 2024.

The decline mirrors similar drops in confidence for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, which also fell to roughly 60%–62% in the latest survey.

The report notes that confidence in those agencies remained relatively stable during 2024 but began to fall in early 2025 and dropped further in late 2025.

Only a small share of Americans expressed strong confidence in agency leadership. Just 5% said they were “very confident” that leaders at federal health agencies such as the FDA are providing trustworthy public health information, compared with 18% who said they were very confident in career scientists at those agencies.

The survey also found that Americans tend to trust major professional medical organizations more than federal health agencies for guidance on public health issues. For example, 82% of respondents said they are confident in the American Heart Association as a source of reliable health information, compared with 62% for FDA. Similarly, 73% said they trust the American Medical Association and 77% trust the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Annenberg survey is part of an ongoing research project tracking public attitudes toward vaccines and public health guidance since 2021.

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