https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/14/poll-rfk-maha-vaccine-safety-americans-00869088

Final paragraphs:

From a broad historical perspective, there was only a brief period in the decades after World War II when vaccination was less “politically contentious,” said Elena Conis, a University of California, Berkeley professor and author of “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization.”

Part of the reason vaccines were made mandatory for children for school entry, she said, is that “it’s always been hard to vaccinate adults” due to a level of resistance, “and vaccinating children…was the most expedient way to get a healthy adult population.”

And see this juicy article:

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-story-of-the-victorian-era-anti-mandate-movement/

The dominant theme of the [health freedom] movement now – and this has always been true – is to reject intervention and instead regard this industry as any other in a free marketplace (hamburgers, bottled water, washing machines, etc.), neither subsidized, nor mandated, nor protected from liability from imposed harms. If that goal were achieved, the “anti-vaxx” movement would shrink dramatically….