More than 20 years ago, a small group of parents found one another through unimaginable grief. Each of our families had lost a child to complications from the flu.
At the time, the annual flu vaccine was recommended only for children aged 6 to 23 months. Our kids were older. They were healthy. They were not vaccinated.
As young parents, we had never heard of anyone, let alone a healthy child, dying from the flu. We trusted that if our children were at risk, we would have been told. Instead, we were left to grapple with a devastating reality—and a question that would not let us rest: How do we make sure this never happens to another family?
Out of that grief, Families Fighting Flu was born.
We found our footing, our message, and our mission. We went directly to the decision-makers at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the body that guides national vaccine recommendations. We told our stories alongside doctors and scientists. We showed the data. And we urged them to strengthen the flu vaccine policy to protect all children.
They listened.
In 2006, the flu vaccine recommendation was expanded to include children up to 59 months. In 2008, it was expanded again—this time to all children up to 18 years of age. In 2010, the recommendations were expanded again and have remained unchanged until this month: that everyone aged 6 months and older receive an annual flu shot.
Each expansion made a difference. With every policy change, vaccination rates rose.
We know that when vaccination rates rise, flu cases, hospitalizations, and pediatric deaths fall. These aren’t abstract victories—they are lives saved. This progress has become part of our children’s legacy.
Now, that legacy is under threat.
ACIP has been dismantled and restocked with anti-vaccine activists by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His campaign to weaken America’s protections against infectious disease reached a dangerous new low with the tearing down of the childhood immunization schedule, including the dismissal of the annual flu vaccine recommendation for children.
The timing could not be more chilling.
The very same day these changes were announced, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—ACIP’s parent organization—reported a record 289 pediatric flu deaths during the 2024–2025 season. Two hundred eighty-nine children. Removing the flu vaccine recommendation for kids will not reverse this trend. It will accelerate it in seasons to come.
Secretary Kennedy claims that dropping vaccine recommendations will “rebuild trust” in public health. That would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so deadly.
What will actually happen is painfully clear. Vaccination rates will fall even further. Access to vaccines will decline, especially in underserved communities. Health disparities will widen. Confusion will spread. Confidence in vaccines will erode. And more children will get sick and die from a disease we already know how to prevent.
Just as in 2004, unsuspecting parents will face the unthinkable: the realization that their child—left unprotected by policy failure—is gone.
Today, Families Fighting Flu includes over 70 families—continuing to grow—who have lost a child or loved one to influenza, as well as many more whose children or loved ones survived but live with lifelong complications—proof that the harm of flu extends far beyond those we lose.
We know this story because we lived it.
This is not the legacy we will accept for Jessica, Alana, Amanda, Emily, and all our families’ loved ones we represent. Their lives mattered. Their deaths changed policy once, and they should not now be used to justify its destruction.
We will continue to raise our voices. We will continue to tell the truth. We will continue to advocate for improving America’s public health.
Children’s lives depend on it.
Gary Stein, Doris Stein, Alissa Kanowitz, Joe Lastinger, Jennifer Lastinger, and Zach Yaksich are founding members of Families Fighting Flu.
Contact:
703.403.8318
917.903.0502
214.263.3840
248.330.9005