Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline
As summer gives way to fall, it’s the start of the respiratory virus season. But messaging for health care providers this year is tricky.
“It is tumultuous. There’s a lot of chaos,” Dr. David Wohl told NC Newsline in a recent interview.
Wohl is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has spent over 20 years leading research into the prevention and treatment of HIV. In 2020, he helped lead the UNC clinical and research response to COVID-19.
The tumult that Wohl is referring to now is the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his stance on vaccines.
In a fiery hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy justified his firing of an influential vaccine advisory panel, while saying it was unclear the COVID-19 vaccine had saved millions of lives. The 71-year-old Kennedy has expressed distrust in the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
‘Throwing shade’
Wohl calls the recent politicization of vaccines “tragic.”
Infectious diseases professor Dr. David Wohl (Screengrab from Newsline interview)Nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including North Carolina’s Mandy Cohen, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed that Kennedy in his short tenure had “severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans” by canceling promising medical research and downplaying vaccines.
“Most people in this country understand that vaccines work,” Wohl said. “Especially older people who remember what it was like, you know, when there were such things as polio, you know, and whooping cough, you know, running through schools. So again, I think that most people get it, but our leadership is really, unfortunately, on the fringe. And this is a very, very dangerous course that we’re leading to.”
Wohl and others point to measles, once believed to be eliminated in the United States. Vaccine confusion and vaccine hesitancy has allowed the virus to reemerge.
“This is a vaccine that has been around for literally generations. We know all about it. We know about its safety. We know about its effectiveness. You know, two shots render you like 98% impervious to getting measles. It’s a triumph,” explained Wohl. “The epicenter of these outbreaks are in communities that have decided not to vaccinate their children. And we are seeing somebody come in from another place where measles is endemic and infecting people and then it spreads like wildfire.”
More than 1,400 confirmed cases have been reported in 41 states this year.
He notes that the good news is most of Americans are immune. If you were born before 1957, chances are you contracted measles and developed lifelong immunity. When the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, it became widely recommended for children and adults and by the ’70s was combined to what we now commonly call the MMR vaccine, covering measles, mumps and rubella.
“So, a lot of us are already immune but if it gets a niche into a place, a community where there’s less vaccination, then you start to see it spread. So, I think it’s a matter of time before we get some cases in North Carolina,” said the UNC Health infectious disease researcher.
But Wohl worries about Kennedy “throwing shade on vaccines” leading to only more confusion.
Senators and some states push back
In the Sept. 4 committee hearing, Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis said Kennedy’s statements were so contradictory, he wanted them submitted in writing to clarify his positions.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) (Photo courtesy of Senate.gov)“You [said you] will do nothing that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines. There seem to be several reports that would seem to refute that,” Tillis said.
The North Carolina senator said he also wanted a written explanation for Kennedy’s firing of a CDC director, attempts to stall NIH funding, the canceling of mRNA research contracts and the firing of advisory board members.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), that now includes some vaccine skeptics selected by Kennedy over the summer, will meet Sept. 18 and 19.
“They’re not just going to talk about COVID vaccines. They’re going to talk about childhood vaccines as well,” Wohl said. “We may see things like Hepatitis B, which could be eliminated from this planet if there was more vaccination be pulled from the schedule. Like all these things that really are just a rollback, I do think could be very consequential and dangerous.”
Some North Carolina pharmacies are waiting for more guidance before widely administering the COVID vaccine this year. Others are requiring a prescription. According to Stateline, at least five states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania — have opted to break from the FDA’s policy and make the COVID vaccines accessible to those who wish to have a booster this fall.
Wohl acknowledges the changing federal policy around COVID can be confusing. He recommends North Carolinians talk to a trusted medical care provider, and make sure they stay up-to-date on the vaccines that are accessible.
This year’s flu shot targets three different strains of seasonal flu and reduces not only the severity of illness but cuts one’s risk of having to see their doctor for flu by about 50%. North Carolina recorded more than 500 flu-related deaths during last year’s respiratory virus season.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) offers a detailed respiratory virus surveillance dashboard tracking how much virus is circulating each week.
Beyond annual immunizations
Beyond the Department of Health and Human Services’ vaccine policies, Wohl is waiting to see how the Trump administration’s budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) impact university research.
“If you really want to talk about what makes America great, we have been the best at this,” he said. “Nobody comes close to the innovation, the creativity that the NIH helps fund.”
Wohl said the billions of dollars the first Trump administration provided to rapidly develop and distribute the COVID shots was a triumph, and is now wrongly being called into question by vaccine skeptics.
“The investment leads to all sorts of consequential products. People are hired. People work, based upon the NIH funding. We hire loads of people to do this kind of research. These are all good things that have collateral benefits for communities,” he explained.
UNC was selected in the summer of 2023 to participate in NIH research on Long COVID. This June the university was forced to close the clinic after the loss of multiple funding sources.
One in 6 North Carolinians has experienced Long COVID, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
“You know, it’s not a good return on investment to pull this money. It’s the opposite. I don’t hear a really good justification for why we should take a chainsaw to these institutions,” Wohl said.
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