Influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 Vaccines: Effectiveness, Safety, and Trust in 2026

Thanks so much for having me, Preeti.

To begin our conversation, can you briefly explain the process behind these evidence reports, both the why and the how?

Right.

So the Vaccine Integrity Project was born out of the intense need, as you said, to fill a gap that the federal government, the CDC, and the ACIP were no longer filling.

Anticipating that we might see changes in the current leadership and policies may fall short, in 2025, we at the project did some listening sessions to understand what key stakeholders like state and local health departments, professional societies, hospitals, insurers would need.

Ultimately, the project became the product of these conversations, and we recognized at the Vaccine Integrity Project that we cannot fill all the roles that the federal government was filling with regard to vaccine policy, but that we could collaborate with the societies to understand and meet the needs of those societies as they were stepping up to provide vaccine recommendations.

And what we heard loud and clear was that the CDC and the ACIP used to provide comprehensive evidence reviews every year as they were making vaccine policy, especially during respiratory virus season.

And so what we decided to do was to conduct those comprehensive, transparent evidence reviews and deliver those to the societies so that they would have a framework and the evidence in order to make their recommendations.

Thanks for that background.

So let's move on to these three reports, and I'll remind listeners that there are links to all these reports in the episode's show notes.

Thanks so much for having me, Preeti.

To begin our conversation, can you briefly explain the process behind these evidence reports, both the why and the how?

Right.

So the Vaccine Integrity Project was born out of the intense need, as you said, to fill a gap that the federal government, the CDC, and the ACIP were no longer filling.

Anticipating that we might see changes in the current leadership and policies may fall short, in 2025, we at the project did some listening sessions to understand what key stakeholders like state and local health departments, professional societies, hospitals, insurers would need.

Ultimately, the project became the product of these conversations, and we recognized at the Vaccine Integrity Project that we cannot fill all the roles that the federal government was filling with regard to vaccine policy, but that we could collaborate with the societies to understand and meet the needs of those societies as they were stepping up to provide vaccine recommendations.

And what we heard loud and clear was that the CDC and the ACIP used to provide comprehensive evidence reviews every year as they were making vaccine policy, especially during respiratory virus season.

And so what we decided to do was to conduct those comprehensive, transparent evidence reviews and deliver those to the societies so that they would have a framework and the evidence in order to make their recommendations.

Thanks for that background.

So let's move on to these three reports, and I'll remind listeners that there are links to all these reports in the episode's show notes.