Trust in Medicine Fell. Here Is the Record, and Ten Cases.

A YouTube channel called Redacted posted a poll to its community page around November 12, 2026. The question: "Trust check, end of the day. How much do you trust federal health agencies today?" The channel's own audience chose to answer. There were 12,000 votes. 86% said "Not at all." 11% said "A little." 2% said "Mostly." 1% said "Fully."

A 50-state survey appeared in JAMA Network Open in July 2024. Roy Perlis and colleagues surveyed 443,455 people over 24 waves. The share of U.S. adults reporting "a lot of trust" in physicians and hospitals was 71.5% in April 2020. By January 2024 that share had fallen to 40.1%. Lower trust was linked to lower vaccination rates. It was an online survey of volunteers, not a random sample. An AP-NORC and USAFacts poll asked 1,036 adults between July 29 and August 10, 2026. It found: "Just 44% of adults overall trust information from federal agencies at least a moderate amount."

A long record

The U.S. Public Health Service ran the Tuskegee study from 1932 to 1972. It followed 600 Black men—399 with syphilis and 201 without. Researchers did not obtain informed consent. The men thought it was "a special government health care program." Treatment was withheld even after penicillin became widely available. The study ended in 1972 after news reports.

A 2016 paper in JAMA Internal Medicine studied the sugar industry's own papers. Harvard researchers wrote a review for the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967. The Sugar Research Foundation paid for it. That review blamed fat and cholesterol for heart disease and played down sugar as a risk factor. The foundation set the review's goal, contributed articles and received drafts. Its funding and role "was not disclosed."

Merck's painkiller Vioxx was withdrawn in 2004. FDA drug-safety scientist David Graham spoke to the Senate Finance Committee on November 18, 2004. He said his estimate of excess heart attacks and sudden heart deaths linked to Vioxx "ranges from 88,000 to 139,000 Americans." He also said: "I would argue that the FDA, as currently configured, is incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx."

On November 24, 2020, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to three federal felonies. One was a conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Two were conspiracies to break the federal anti-kickback law. NBC News said the company conspired to cheat U.S. officials and to pay illegal kickbacks to doctors and a health records company.

What COVID added

On March 8, 2020, Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes: "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask." CBS reported that he said masks "do not provide the level of protection people think they do." On April 3, 2020, federal health officials began recommending cloth face coverings in public.

On the six-foot distancing rule, Fauci spoke to a House panel on the pandemic on January 9, 2024. He said the rule "sort of just appeared." He said he was "not aware of studies" behind it. At a June 3, 2024 hearing he said: "It actually came from the CDC."

On March 29, 2021, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky spoke on MSNBC. She said "vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick, and that is not just in the clinical trials." Days later the CDC told The New York Times: "Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview." The agency added: "It's possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19."

On the virus's origin, the Energy Department concluded in 2023 that a lab leak was most likely, with low confidence. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau believed the virus "most likely" came from a lab. The CIA said on January 25, 2025, that the virus "most likely originated from a laboratory," also with "low confidence." Fortune reported that scientists think the most likely explanation is natural spillover from animals at a Wuhan market. It said research-related and natural origins both "remain plausible."

The Commonwealth Fund used a computer model in December 2022 to estimate the impact of U.S. vaccination. It estimated the program prevented 3.2 million additional deaths and 18.5 million hospitalizations from December 2020 through November 2022.

Ten cases where the alternative did as well or better

1. Acupuncture for chronic low back pain. A large German trial in Archives of Internal Medicine in 2007 compared acupuncture with guideline therapy—drugs, physical therapy, and exercise. After six months, 47.6% improved with real acupuncture versus 27.4% with standard therapy. Sham acupuncture, with needles placed shallowly at the wrong points, scored 44.2%. Real and sham needling did about the same. Both did about twice as well as standard care.
2. Stool transplant for repeat C. difficile infections. A 2013 trial in the New England Journal of Medicine compared donor-stool treatment—once seen as fringe—with 14 days of the antibiotic vancomycin. The stool group first got four days of vancomycin and a bowel wash. The infection resolved in 81% (13 of 16) after one stool infusion versus 31% (4 of 13) on vancomycin alone. The trial was stopped early.
3. Artemisinin for severe malaria. Chinese scientist Tu Youyou turned to traditional herbal medicine and extracted artemisinin from the plant Artemisia annua. She won the 2015 Nobel Prize. Artesunate is a drug made from artemisinin. In a 2005 Lancet trial of 1,461 patients in Asia, deaths were 15% with artesunate versus 22% with quinine. In a 2010 Lancet trial of 5,425 African children, deaths were 8.5% versus 10.9%. The 2010 authors said artesunate "should replace quinine as the treatment of choice for severe falciparum malaria worldwide."
4. Honey for children's night cough. A 2007 study in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine compared honey with the cough drug dextromethorphan. Parents rated honey best. Honey beat no treatment; the drug did not beat no treatment on any measure. Honey and the drug did not differ by a significant amount.
5. Lifestyle change for heart disease. A 1998 JAMA trial assigned 48 people with heart disease to intensive lifestyle change or usual care. The lifestyle group ate a 10% fat vegetarian diet, exercised, managed stress and got group support, without cholesterol drugs. Over five years, artery narrowing shrank in the lifestyle group and grew in the usual-care group. There were 25 heart events among 28 lifestyle patients and 45 among 20 usual-care patients.
6. Tai chi for fibromyalgia. A 2018 BMJ trial compared tai chi with aerobic exercise. The authors called aerobic exercise "the current most commonly prescribed non-drug treatment." Tai chi did as well or better overall. At the same dose—24 weeks, twice weekly—it improved the symptom score by 16.2 points more.
7. The Mediterranean diet for heart disease. A trial followed 7,447 people at high heart risk in Spain. The New England Journal of Medicine published a reanalysis in 2018. It compared the Mediterranean diet with standard advice to cut dietary fat. Heart attacks, strokes, and heart deaths were 31% lower with the Mediterranean diet plus extra-virgin olive oil. They were 28% lower with nuts.
8. The ketogenic diet for epilepsy. A 2008 trial in Lancet Neurology enrolled children who had failed at least two seizure drugs. The diet has been used since the 1920s. After three months, 38% on the diet had their seizures cut by more than half. Among children who stayed on their usual treatment, 6% did.
9. St. John's wort for depression. A 2008 Cochrane review covered 29 trials and 5,489 people. It compared the herb with prescription antidepressants including SSRIs. St. John's wort was "similarly effective as standard antidepressants" and had "fewer side effects." Patients on the herb were about half as likely to quit because of side effects as patients on SSRIs (odds ratio 0.53).
10. Mindfulness for chronic low back pain. A 2016 trial in JAMA enrolled 342 adults. It compared mindfulness-based stress reduction with usual care. At 26 weeks, 60.5% improved in function with mindfulness versus 44.1% with usual care. With cognitive behavioral therapy, 57.7% improved. Mindfulness did as well.

The guideline that followed

In 2017 a national group of doctors, the American College of Physicians, published a back-pain guideline. For chronic low back pain, it told doctors and patients to start with treatments that do not use drugs. Those include exercise, rehab programs, acupuncture, mindfulness, tai chi, yoga, and spinal manipulation. Drugs come after.

Sources: JAMA Network Open, Perlis et al., July 2024; AP-NORC/USAFacts, September 2026; CDC, Tuskegee Study; JAMA Internal Medicine, Kearns et al., 2016; David Graham Senate testimony, November 18, 2004; NBC News, Purdue Pharma guilty plea; CBS News, Fauci on masks, March 2020; PolitiFact, Fauci on six-foot rule; Yahoo/NYT, Walensky vaccine statement; Fortune, CIA lab-leak assessment, January 2025; Commonwealth Fund, vaccine impact estimate, December 2022; Archives of Internal Medicine, GERAC trial, 2007; NEJM, stool transplant trial, 2013; Nobel Prize, Tu Youyou, 2015; Lancet, artesunate adults, 2005; Lancet, artesunate children, 2010; Archives of Pediatrics, honey trial, 2007; JAMA, Ornish et al., 1998; BMJ, tai chi fibromyalgia, 2018; NEJM, Mediterranean diet reanalysis, 2018; Lancet Neurology, ketogenic diet, 2008; Cochrane, St. John's wort, 2008; JAMA, mindfulness back pain, 2016; American College of Physicians back-pain guideline, 2017