POLICY

How a Pediatrician Earns Trust in a Time of Vaccine Doubt

As vaccine fears grow, some practices see value in working with shot skeptics, rather than refusing to treat them.

By Grayson Logue
Published October 14, 2025

Dr. Andrew Miller noticed the pattern immediately. Over just a couple of weeks, nearly a dozen new patients walked into his North Carolina pediatric practice—all of them opting out of some or all vaccines for their children.

When he finally asked one parent how they’d found him, the answer stopped him cold: “Well, you know, you’re on that website.”

The website turned out to be “Dr. Green Mom,” a blog run by a naturopathic doctor who describes herself as “vaccine-neutral” and sells supplements like “VaxClear” for supposed “toxin elimination” during vaccination. The site maintains a database of doctors in each state who are friendly toward—or at least tolerant of—families who skip vaccines.

“I agree very little with what is on the Dr. Green Mom site, and I think it mostly operates in a pseudoscience fashion,” Miller told The Dispatch.

His reaction to being listed? He decided to stay on it.

While more than half of pediatric practices now dismiss families who refuse vaccines—up from just 21 percent a decade ago—Miller takes the opposite approach. He’s become a destination for vaccine-hesitant parents, some driving up to four hours to see him. “These people are going to end up in echo-chamber clinics that are telling them what they already want to hear,” Miller warns. “Which I would argue is bad medicine.”

Dispatch staff writer Grayson Logue explores how some doctors are navigating America’s vaccine crisis, the surprising data on dismissal policies, and why trust in your child’s pediatrician might be the last thing standing between public health and chaos.

With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helming the Department of Health and Human Services and childhood vaccination rates slipping, pediatricians face an imposing choice: Do dismissal policies protect other patients and incentivize vaccination? Or do they drive confused families further into the arms of misinformation peddlers?

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