A strong majority of voters say that evidence of the federal government’s cover-up of the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines during the Biden Administration constitutes a serious scandal, a new national survey reveals.
A Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report exposed “how senior officials at the FDA turned a blind eye toward warnings that their vaccine safety monitoring system was hiding safety signals for the COVID-19 vaccines,” committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) said in a July 29, 2026 press release announcing his intent to interview COVID czar Anthony Fauci and other former Biden Administration health officials.
“How serious is this scandal at the FDA?” a national Rasmussen survey conducted August 5-6 Rasmussen asked U.S. likely voters:
“U.S. Senate investigators say evidence shows that senior officials at the federal Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA, were aware of high numbers of severe side effects from COVID-19 vaccines, and hid this data from the public. How serious is this scandal at the FDA?”
Fully 71% of voters called it a serious scandal – with half (50%) calling it a “very serious” scandal. Only 22% said they thought it wasn’t a serious scandal, while 6% reported that they were “not sure.”
Majorities of voters from all political categories deemed the FDA scandal to be at least somewhat serious:
- Republicans: 88% (including 67% calling it a “very serious” scandal).
- Democrats: 61% (39% “very serious”).
- Unaffiliated: 63% (44% “very serious”).
Democrat voters’ outsized inherent trust in the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines appears to have contributed to their greater propensity to dismiss the scandal. Among Democrats, 76% rated the vaccines to be at least somewhat safe and effective, including 51% who said they were “very” much so.
In contrast, 57% of all voters said they thought the vaccines were at least somewhat safe and effective (34% “very,” 23% “somewhat”).
The level of trust in the vaccines would likely have been even lower, were it not for the continued bias of legacy media, which have obdurately refused to report evidence of Biden Administration malfeasance in its COVID management and messaging.
On Monday, for example, Senator Johnson’s committee released text messages from Fauci’s government iPhone revealing that the COVID czar had recognized potential risks to pregnant women of the COVID vaccines, but publicly declared the vaccines to be without risk.
A Media Research Center (MRC) NewsBusters study released Tuesday found that all “Big Three” networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) refused to report the findings on their flagship Monday evening or Tuesday morning news broadcasts.
Likewise, Big Tech platforms also failed to display even a single new stories about the uncovered text messages, a study by MRC Free Speech America found:
“Zero. That's the number of stories Apple News, Google News and Microsoft’s MSN showed the morning after it was revealed that former U.S. Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci quietly kept COVID-19 mRNA shot reactions—including miscarriage concerns—from the American public. Fauci, according to Fox News, publicly claimed that there were ‘no red flags’ among the thousands of pregnant women who received the mRNA injections.”
Rasmussen also asked voters what sort of punishment should be given to FDA officials proven to have covered up the dangers of COVID vaccines:
“If it is proven that officials at the FDA and other federal agencies concealed data about severe side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, what would be the appropriate punishment for these officials?”
About half (48%) said that proven perpetrators should be criminally prosecuted. Another 21% said they should only lose their jobs, while 11% said they should lose their medical licenses, as their only punishment. Only 10% said that officials who concealed data about the severe side effects of the vaccines should not receive any punishment.
