The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week launched a new “Wild to Mild” ad campaign to “tame skepticism about flu vaccines,” CNN Health reported.
The campaign, which will run on the radio and social media platforms starting this week, targets pregnant women and parents of young children “because vaccination rates are down in both of those high-risk groups,” said CNN.
Experts who spoke with The Defender, however, questioned the efficacy of flu vaccines and cautioned about their potential harms.
The CDC ads feature cute animal images, including one that depicts a tiger (“a ferocious animal”) and a kitten (“something that’s not scary”) designed to promote the idea that the flu vaccine, rather than preventing influenza altogether, will inhibit severe symptoms and yield a milder course of the illness.
The CNN article cited CDC data showing flu vaccination rates for pregnant women are down more than 16% since 2019 and 7% for children under 18. “That means more than 3.7 million people were unprotected during pregnancy over the past winter” along with “an estimated 32 million children,” CNN reported.
Erin Burns, M.A., associate director for communications for the Influenza Division at the CDC, told CNN the progress made to vaccinate pregnant women after the 2009 H1N1 pandemic has been “completely wiped out in the years since COVID-19.”
Focus groups run by the CDC showed that “most of the pregnant women had no intention of getting a flu vaccine and no awareness of the benefits it could bring them or their baby,” Burns said.
Read more: CDC’s New ‘Wild to Mild’ Ad Campaign Hypes Flu Vaccines for Kids, Pregnant Women
