The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled back a public health campaign promoting the flu vaccine as cases of the flu have surged in recent weeks.
The now-defunct “Wild to Mild” flu vaccination campaign encouraged people to get the flu vaccine, mostly aiming to communicate that one could still catch the flu after vaccination but that vaccination can lessen symptoms and the chance of getting severely ill. The campaign’s end comes days after the Senate confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime skeptic of vaccines who has spread conspiracies about them.
“We found that it was very successful—people understood the message, [and] they were swayed by the message,” Erin Burns, the associate director for communications in the CDC’s Influenza Division, told the trade website Fierce Pharma in October 2024 on the effectiveness of the “Wild to Mild” campaign.
Leaders at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told CDC staff that the Department of Health and Human Services had reviewed the campaign and that it would no longer continue, according to an NPR report.
“The CDC campaign is a creative and effective way of conveying an extremely important public health message about ‘partial protection’ vs. ‘complete prevention’ of disease,” Marla Dalton, the executive director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told NPR in an email.
The CDC’s decision under the Trump administration also comes as the country is grappling with a surge in flu cases. More than 50,000 people were hospitalized with the flu during the week of Feb. 8, the highest level in 15 years.
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The campaign was mostly digital, but it was posted on trains in four major U.S. cities. According to the CDC, the outreach on public transit reached more than 30 million riders and generated an additional 30 million digital impressions by the end of October 2024.
According to NPR,, the ad was set to run through at least the end of flu season, which typically lasts until the first week of May.