Q&A with Michael Osterholm: Vaccine Integrity Project to serve as trusted voice on science

What is the purpose of the Vaccine Integrity Project?

When it was announced that Mr. Kennedy would be the nominee for secretary of health and human services and eventually was approved and appointed, it became very clear that we were going to have major challenges with the accuracy and the context of vaccination in this country. His rhetoric has been at the very best, mixed, but largely that of an anti-vaccine approach.

With the impact that the administration was likely to have on the CDC, FDA and NIH, the ability to get comprehensive, accurate and timely information on vaccines could very well be compromised; specifically around the issue of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and what they may be able to do in terms of providing that authoritative voice that we’ve all counted on.

We brought together a group here at our center, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, to actually ask the question, “What, in these circumstances, is needed that is not being met and what could be done?

What is the project working on?

What we’re doing right now is a series of eight focus groups involving people from across all aspects of the vaccine enterprise area — from basic R&D all the way up to those who actually make decisions about whether to get vaccines or not, and everything in between.

We will hopefully by early summer have a readout from all of these focus groups, understanding what is it that is currently missing or needs to be done, what are the voices that need to be out there, what are the potential efforts that could be done outside of government.

No one can ever fully replace the ACIP. They’re unique…they’re a government committee that the private citizen or private group just can’t duplicate. But at the same time, can we do other things? And so we’re going to be looking at that.

Why should public health professionals trust this information?

First of all, you have to ask the question: Who can public health trust right now? And unfortunately, there are challenges to trusting much of the information coming from our federal government.

Our job is not to become necessarily the appointed voice of accuracy. But we can contribute to that and surely help out with that. More importantly, what we’re trying to do is actually ascertain the entire waterfront of organizations, individuals that have something to offer in terms of the vaccine integrity issues.

We’re hearing over and over again about the confusing messages that are coming out right now from the administration about the safety of vaccines.

When the secretary says, “You should get vaccinated in an outbreak, but be careful because we don’t know what’s in those vaccines.” That right there is a game stopper in terms for many parents saying, “Well, I’m going to wait. I don’t want to do that right now.”

Which vaccines do you see as facing the greatest threats or challenges?

We’re surely very concerned about the annual influenza vaccine schedule and how that might be met and looking at COVID.

With COVID, we have had a lot of experience changing out the antigen based on what was happening with the variants. Now, is that going to need to have a new study done every time that the vaccine antigens are changing for COVID vaccines? If so, that’s going to make it very difficult to be timely relative to any seasonal issues.

But I think we’re seeing issues raised across the board on vaccine mandates. There is nothing that goes more to the heart of vaccine mandates than mumps, measles and rubella vaccine, and we’re watching that unfold right in front of us with the measles epidemic that’s occurring across the country. Ground zero for one of the major outbreaks is the Texas-New Mexico area; but we’re seeing now flares of cases occurring around the country.

Which vaccines do you see as facing the greatest threats or challenges?

I’ve been in this business for 50 years. I thought I had seen the days of challenges with vaccine preventable diseases conquered and obviously that’s not the case: They’re back.

The challenge we have right now is understanding exactly why are they back; what contributes to a parent’s decision to vaccinate or not vaccinate their child? What kind of information is important? What is it that’s a roadblock for getting those children vaccinated? In many instances, we’re not certain.

With the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration, it makes it triply challenging, because of the fact that now we’re having to deal with people saying, “Well, here’s the leading public health people in the government telling us X

and you’re telling us Y.” That distrust makes it difficult to convince parents why you need and want to have children vaccinated.

Two professionals at Larchmont Pediatrics in Los Angeles take part in vaccinating Perry Roj, 4, as her mother, Devin Homsey, looks on in March. In the wake of erosion of science, a new initiative at the University of Minnesota is working to improve vaccine trust and uptake.

Photo by Allen Schaben, courtesy The Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

How can public health professionals use information from the Vaccine Integrity Project?

We’re still collecting this information, so it’s hard for me to conclude what it will say. But I think it’ll be a very straightforward kind of report. It’s not an ideological bent. It’s not about the kind of policies that might be controversial. It’ll be about what do we know about the vaccine enterprise today, what is it being compromised by the current actions of government and what can non-governmental organizations do about that?

We’re really attempting to just answer as many of these questions now about what is it that we don’t know, so that we can start addressing what we need to know.

For more information, visit www.cidrap.umn.edu/vaccine-integrity-project.

This interview was edited for length, clarity and style.