Health advice feels unstable right now. Here’s what parents can still trust
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When we tell parents to make better individual choices without fixing the systems that shape those choices, we're transferring the burden, not solving the problem.
A few weeks ago, a close friend and new mom asked me something I didn’t expect:
“Should I stop giving my baby Tylenol?”
She was asking because federal officials had publicly questioned the medication’s safety, citing a possible link to autism — a claim not supported by science. But when warnings like that come from the highest levels of government, parents take them seriously.
A few years ago, her question would have been easy to answer. Now, it isn’t.
I’m a scientist by training, with a PhD in cell and molecular biology, and I’ve spent years working at the intersection of science and policy. I know how to find credible information and how to evaluate it. And even with my experience, I find this moment requires more careful navigation than it should.
The problem isn’t just that misinformation exists. It’s that the guardrails parents have long relied on — public health agencies, clear health guidelines, consistent expert consensus — no longer feel stable. For decades, the CDC and the FDA helped translate evidence into decisions parents could safely make for their families. Today, trust in the CDC has plummeted and that clarity is eroding.
Skepticism of long-settled science is coming not just from the internet, but from people in this country’s highest positions of authority. The overwhelming evidence that vaccines don’t cause autism is being publicly called into question. Everyday medications have become sources of confusion. And a flood of online content offers confident, simple, but often inaccurate answers to genuinely complicated medical questions.
There is no question that some of this conflicting information taps into real concerns. Parents want healthier food for their kids that is less processed, with fewer chemicals and artificial dyes. Calling for more transparency about what’s actually in the food we eat and feed our families is a legitimate demand and deserves serious policy attention. But there’s a meaningful difference between asking good questions and not having a trusted place to turn to for answers.
As a mom of three, I hear these concerns constantly: at school pickup, on the playground, in late-night texts from friends trying to figure out what’s real. Maybe you’re having these conversations too. The uncertainty is quiet but widespread, with profound consequences for the health of our country.
Measles, a disease once eliminated in the United States, has resurged, with more than 1,980 cases reported as of May this year only slightly below the record setting cases of 2025, driven largely by declining vaccination rates. Children too young to be vaccinated, or too medically vulnerable, are now at risk because doubt and confusion are spreading faster than facts.
There’s a growing belief that parents need to take more control, question long-trusted institutions, and rely on themselves more to make better choices. There is truth in the idea that knowledge is power and that we can all benefit from learning about the science behind the facts. But this framing carries a hidden assumption: that all families have the same access and resources available to them.
“Just choose healthier foods” isn’t realistic when affordable options are scarce, or the nearest fresh food market is three bus rides away. Researching competing health claims isn’t feasible when you’re working multiple jobs or stretched thin by caregiving. And no matter their background or resources, many parents simply don’t have the time or energy to evaluate a peer-reviewed study against a confident social media post from an elected official calling into question the safety of certain drugs or vaccines.
When we tell parents to make better individual choices without fixing the systems that shape those choices, we’re transferring the burden, not solving the problem.
What families need most is the kind of support that makes good decisions possible in the first place: trusted, factual information that doesn’t shift with the political winds, access to good care and healthy food, and communities that don’t leave parents sorting through competing claims all by themselves.
Fortunately, that support exists in more places than people realize. From vaccine guidance by the American Academy of Pediatrics to nutrition recommendations from groups like Healthy Eating Research and Feeding America. These organizations offer real, practical evidence-based resources that are making a real difference. It’s not glamorous work, and it rarely makes headlines, but their tireless work is helping families every day make healthy decisions in a world that has become genuinely hard to navigate.
Recently, my 10-year-old was watching the news and turned to me, puzzled: “We learned in school that vaccines are safe. So why are they saying they’re not?”
Good question. And one that many parents are asking themselves coast to coast.
With no reliable playbook, where do we turn? The answer is in the communities we trust: the family pediatrician, our primary care doctors and respected, nonpartisan health organizations, like Trust for America’s Health and the American Academy of Family Physicians. There are many more trustworthy voices we can rely on to help make healthy decisions for our family. And they can make these unsettling times much easier. Not perfect, but steadier. And right now, steadier is worth a lot.
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