As flu slams the Philly region, the FDA cancels a meeting on next season’s vaccines

The Philadelphia region is weathering a particularly serious flu season as actions from President Donald Trump’s new administration raise questions about federal health agencies’ approach toward annual efforts to protect people with vaccines.

The first week of February saw more flu cases in Pennsylvania than any other week over the past five years with almost 29,000 infections, data from the state Department of Health show.

This year’s uptick is adding to the worries of public health experts already concerned about the Trump administration’s early moves. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration canceled a meeting of the advisory committee that helps to select the strains of flu that will be targeted by next season’s vaccines.

The administration has already attempted to cut scientific research funding, frozen communications at federal health agencies, and pulled data from those agencies’ webpages. Earlier last month, the administration postponed a meeting of another advisory committee on vaccines at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Paul Offit, a nationally renowned vaccine expert who directs the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, serves on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. He said there was no explanation given for the cancellation.

Typically, the committee, an independent group of epidemiologists and physicians that reviews vaccines for their safety and efficacy, meets each year in late winter or early spring to determine which flu strains will be circulating in the next flu season, based on data from the World Health Organization. Then, pharmaceutical companies develop vaccines to protect against those strains.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that the FDA “will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”

The spokesperson did not respond to a question about how the agency plans to select a flu strain if its vaccine committee does not meet.

Offit called the cancellation especially troubling given the illness levels seen this winter. “It’s been a rough flu season — hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, tens of thousands of deaths,” he said.

A wave of anti-vaccination sentiment is on the rise, coupled with dropping rates of childhood vaccination. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people forewent routine health care, some children did not get their recommended vaccines on time, according to a CDC report.

Between the 2019-20 flu season and the 2024-25 flu season, those vaccinations among children declined 16% in Pennsylvania and 8% in New Jersey.

The decreased rates are likely contributing to higher rates of flu here, said Perry Halkitis, the dean of Rutgers University’s School of Public Health.

“The [flu] vaccine doesn’t mean you don’t get it. It means that if you get it, it’s not that bad and you don’t become contagious,” he said.

Amid uncertainty over the federal government’s health directives, Halkitis said, local and state health departments can help residents protect themselves during a severe flu season.

“Hopefully, they’ll provide guidance on what we should be doing for our vaccinations, and what would be appropriate,” he said.

» READ MORE: Philly scientists brace for a fight over vaccines and health policy with the Trump administration

It’s also crucial for health agencies and physicians to stress the continued risks of diseases known to circulate each year like the flu, he said. About 40,000 people die of flu per year. About 50,000 a year die of COVID-19, which is still a serious threat to many, although no longer the pandemic emergency declared five years ago when it emerged as a novel virus for which no one had immunity or vaccine protections.

“No one thinks about 40,000 people dying of flu or COVID — it just becomes normal. You have to put a face to it, in a way that makes it real,” Halkitis said. “We have to make it more of a human-based story about the 100,000 we’re going to lose this year from flu and COVID because we’ve not been good about our vaccinations.”