This story appeared in the Oakland Press. Read the full story here.
Veronica McNally is the mother of three sons, an assistant dean at the Michigan State College of Law and a public health champion for children.
The Oakland County woman also happens to be the only Michigander on the Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that has recommended emergency use approval for the three COVID-19 vaccines.
“The challenge is to make sure I’m doing everything I can to effectively represent the consumer voice. Making sure that I have considered all aspects involved in what it means to vaccinate the American population,’’ McNally said. “You’re talking about 330 million people, 72-75 million of which are kids, in a pandemic that is so tragic -— 28 million cases, 500,000 deaths. You don’t want to get it wrong.’’
She’s not a doctor or an epidemiologist, but she has made herself knowledgeable about vaccines since she and her husband, Sean, lost their 3-month-old daughter Francesca to whooping cough in 2012.
“It’s crazy because right now when we talk about vaccination for a respiratory disease and that’s what we lost Francesca to,’’ McNally said.
“When we lost her we wanted to know more about how our situation could have been prevented. We also wanted to educate the medical care professionals because not all of them had seen a vaccine preventable disease and an event.’’
Thus began her journey to provide vaccine education which led to the IVaccinate.org website in partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, to four-year term on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices which started in October 2018.
“I have spent a ton of time trying to understand the vaccination development process, the safety monitoring process, what it means to be in the midst of a pandemic,’’ McNally said. “There are podcasts that I listen to, there are websites that I visit. I would say my daily exposure to vaccines comes through my participation on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.’’
The committee features 14 doctors and McNally who serves as the consumer representative. A 1972 statute, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, requires one consumer voice on each federal advisory committee.
“There are 21 federal advisory committees at the CDC and the ACIP is one of those,’’ McNally explained.
The group typically meets three times a year, but with the COVID pandemic their work has multiplied. The meetings are on Zoom instead of in person.
She has been in on the decisions for the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Once the ACIP issues a recommendation, the Federal Drug Administration gives the final approval.
“It’s important for people to remember that the regulatory process that exists to approve vaccines is the same process that these vaccines went through. Nothing changed regarding the safety and efficacy,’’ McNally said.
With all her work she still is not eligible — she’s only 41 — to be vaccinated.
“As soon as I can get it, I’m putting my arm out. I will take any of the three candidates. I’m very anxious to get it,’’ McNally said.
She started the Franny Strong Foundation in memory of her daughter and in hopes other families would never have to suffer such a loss.
“When we started the foundation we were going to educate people about whooping cough. It was so clear to me that within a couple months we needed to be talking about all vaccine preventable diseases. At that time my idea to create this public education campaign was born,’’ McNally said.
She remembers exactly when she decided to move forward on the idea.
“I was watching a TED Talk of Melinda Gates where she was talking about what nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola. What she said is that Coca-Cola has local entrepreneurial talent so in these third-world countries they have people on bikes bringing the product to every single place possible. It’s remarkable to see how they don’t have floors— I think is how she phrased it — but they have Coca-Cola. She said they used inspirational messaging which they do. Everything is feel-good about the messaging and they have real-time data, so it’s how to get the product there.’’
That talk hit her in the right spot.
“The light bulb went on for me that this is how we have to be able to talk about vaccines for children and we needed to make sure that parents have the most credible information they can have because it is potentially going to be life-dependent,’’ McNally said.
It took her five years of research and development to create a website which she said involves peer-to-peer education. A partnership was formed with the MDHHS for IVaccinate.org.
Her work has not gone unnoticed which led to her role on the ACIP.
While three vaccines have received approval for emergency use, the group is far from done. McNally said there’s another potential vaccine called Novavax in the pipeline.
Also clinical trials are underway for COVID-19 vaccines for children.
“Dr. Fauci has said we would see vaccination hopefully before the fall for children 6 and over,’’ McNally said.
While COVID-19 has hit the elderly particularly hard, McNally thinks it’s crucial to have a vaccine for those under age 16 especially those with underlying conditions such as asthma, chronic lung disease, diabetes, any genetic or neurological condition, heart disease, obesity and sickle cell disease.
If a child does contract COVID it can be followed by multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
“It’s not common, I would say it’s rare, but it’s really serious when it happens. I was talking with someone yesterday, they’re still seeing this happen, even though overall numbers of the virus are not as high as they were in months past. You’re still seeing MIS-C,’’ McNally said.
When the COVID-19 vaccine for children becomes available her three sons — ages 13, 11 and 7 — will all receive it. She’s told them a vaccine is like a ninja eating up all the virus in their bodies.
“If we recommend it as the ACIP then what we’re saying is this is a safe and effective vaccine and we recommend it for children,’’ McNally said.
“The vaccine is the way we’re going to end the pandemic. I don’t know if people understand that, I think some people think it’s just going to die off.’’
Herd immunity will come through the vaccine. It’s too far down the road to think it could come from having so many in the population that have had COVID.
“It’s been an incredible lesson just in vaccines and the power of vaccines in general,’’ McNally said. “I think parents have a greater understanding of what the development process is. I hope that they’ll continue to have a greater understanding of what the safety monitoring process is. The CDC constantly evaluates whether the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks. They do that for all vaccines.’’