COMMENTARY: Sometimes it’s not ‘just the flu’—a plea for vaccination from a father’s heart
Zachary YaksichToday at 8:43 a.m.
Influenza Vaccines
In 2003, my life was completely shattered. My daughter, Alana, was 5½ years old when she died from complications of influenza.
My family and children had received all of their childhood vaccinations on schedule and as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but in 2003, the age recommendation for influenza vaccination was 6 months through 59 months. Alana was older than that. She had not received a flu vaccine, nor had her pediatrician ever recommended one to us or explained the dangers that influenza could pose to a child.
Until Alana died, I had no idea that the flu could kill. Like so many people, I thought of influenza as a miserable but relatively routine illness—something that would make you feel awful for a few days and then eventually pass. I was wrong. It often is that way, but far too often for grieving parents and families, it can be much worse.
A new study changes the conversation
A recently published study in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics, titled “Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Against Pediatric Death in the United States: 2016–2025,” provides some of the most compelling evidence yet about what influenza vaccination can mean for children.Conducted by CDC researchers, the study examined pediatric influenza deaths in the United States over nearly a decade. Its conclusion deserves the attention of every parent: Influenza vaccination reduced the risk of fatal influenza among children with and without known underlying medical conditions. Influenza vaccine was 80% effective in preventing deaths overall, with 77% among children with underlying medical conditions and 87% among children without such conditions.
Why is this more important than ever?
The internet and social media have made it easy for misinformation to spread. People can find almost anything online to reinforce what they already believe, including information that contradicts decades of scientific evidence.Several weeks after Alana's death, while I was trying to make sense of my unimaginable grief, I began researching influenza. I learned that what I had considered “just the flu” was responsible for millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of medical visits and hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of deaths each year. And then came the most painful realization of all: Influenza vaccination can help prevent serious illness and death.
I felt guilty. I was angry that I had not been given the information or the opportunity to make a more informed decision about protecting my daughter.
Out of that grief, Alana's Foundation was born. Our mission is simple: to prevent deaths caused by influenza, a vaccine-preventable disease, and to provide support for families whose children have died from any illness. For more than two decades, we have tried to turn our tragedy into something that could help protect other families.
Throughout the year, we educate the public by providing Alana's story and other educational materials to healthcare providers to share with families who may be hesitant about flu vaccination. I speak at schools, churches and professional conferences, and we exhibit at community, state and healthcare events.
Most important, we sponsor influenza vaccination clinics across the country to make vaccination convenient and affordable in an effort to remove cost, time, and convenience barriers. Today, most insurance plans cover flu vaccination, but, when we started this work, that was not always the case. If someone does not have insurance, Alana's Foundation helps cover the cost of the vaccine.
Long-lasting hurt behind the statistics
During the 2024-25 influenza season, 298 children in the United States died from influenza, according to official CDC data. Of those who were eligible for vaccination, approximately 80% had not received a flu vaccine. Behind each of those 298 was a child with a mother and father, grandparents, siblings, friends, and an entire community whose lives were permanently changed.There is no statistic that can capture what it feels like to walk out of a hospital without your child.
There is no graph that can show what it means to celebrate a birthday with an empty chair.
There is no study that can measure the lifelong grief of a parent who has to bury a child.
But science can tell us something important: Many of these deaths can be prevented.
We are living in a time when trust in institutions and the medical community has been damaged, and when misinformation can travel around the world in seconds. The solution cannot be to shout louder than the misinformation, but provide better information.
Parents deserve honest conversations about vaccines—their benefits, their limitations, their risks, and the diseases they are designed to prevent. They deserve information from credible sources, including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, pediatricians, and other qualified health professionals.
Influenza can and does kill children, but now we have even more evidence that vaccination can help prevent those deaths. Let the science tell the story, and keep politics out of it.
Zachary Yaksich, Alana's father, lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He founded Alana’s Foundation.