Q&A: Soleil Moon Frye on the importance of MenB vaccination

Soleil Moon Frye, who recently reprised the character of Punky Brewster in a revival of the 1980s TV show, is part of a new campaign that encourages parents to speak with pediatricians about the importance of meningococcal B vaccination.

The CDC says adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 23 years may receive a serogroup B meningococcal (MenB) vaccine — one of four CDC recommendations that suggest whether a patient receives a vaccine should be based on “shared clinical decision-making” between patients and physicians. The CDC recommends routine MenB vaccination for children aged 10 years or older who are at an increased risk for meningococcal disease.

Frye teamed with GlaxoSmithKline for the campaign, which is called “Ask2BSure.” According to a press release from GSK, the CDC reports that 21.8% of adolescents aged 17 years had received at least one dose of MenB vaccine in 2019.

Healio spoke with Frye, a mother of four, about promoting MenB vaccination.

Healio: How did you get involved in the campaign?

Frye: I have four kids. My [youngest] is 5 years, I have a 7-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 16-year-old — she turned 16 this week. I learned about meningitis B through a friend. I actually didn't really know much about it.

I think so many people assume when their kids are little and get the meningitis vaccination, that it is the same as meningitis B, which is not the case. I learned that one of the groups most affected by it are 16- to 23-year-olds, which was a really big learning process for me.

Once I dove in and learned more, I spoke to our pediatrician, and we decided to go ahead and have [my eldest daughter] get the vaccination for meningitis B. This was a conversation that we had, and really, for us, it's been about educating and empowering and having this conversation with doctors and health care workers and physicians and being able to have an open dialogue.

Healio: Once you learned about meningitis B, why did you feel it was important to promote vaccination to other parents?

Frye: For me, my whole point is really just to ultimately have a conversation and have a dialogue and open up the dialogue. I really had no idea about meningitis B, and just assumed that the early vaccinations for meningitis went on [as children got older]. Then, learning that this was not the case, I thought that if I didn't know, then there was probably so many other families that didn't know.

Although meningitis B is not common, it's very serious. One out of 10 people who get meningitis B will die from it, and I think that's a really important thing to be able to have a conversation about, and just how quickly sometimes that happens within 24 hours, and to have this dialogue, to be able to have this conversation and for people to be able to make the choice by asking their doctors and having these conversations with each other.

Healio: When you speak to other parents, what is their reaction?

Frye: I was really shocked to see how many of us were not aware of meningitis B. So, there's been very few of my friends that have realized that there is meningitis B, which is separate from the meningitis vaccination. So, I would say that has been one of the biggest learning experiences for us. Most people, I would say, at least among my friends and family, had the assumption that once their kids had the meningitis vaccination as [younger] kids that that was the same as when they got older.

Healio: Can you touch on the importance of vaccinations?

Frye: I'm not going to speak to a blanket statement around vaccinations. I think that's something for each individual to discuss with their family and their health care providers. I can speak to my experience with this and what I've learned, and that ultimately, hearing personal stories pushed me to definitely want to get my 16-year-old the meningitis B vaccination.