When the Detroit Tigers won the 1968 World Series, starting pitcher Mickey Lolich jumped into the arms of his catcher, Bill Freehan, to celebrate an improbable comeback. The St. Louis Cardinals, who won the fall classic the year before, led the Tigers three games to one. But Detroit rallied to win the next three games. Lolich pitched two of those games from start to finish.

The left-hander from Portland, Oregon was named the most valuable player of the ’68 series, and went on to become the Tigers’ all-time leader in strikeouts (2,679), shutouts (39), and games started (459).

50 years later, Lolich put his baseball stories on paper in “Joy in Tigertown” in 2018 with help from Baseball Hall of Fame writer Tom Gage. WDET’s Pat Batcheller talked to Lolich about the book.

Pat Batcheller: Why did you write the book?

Mickey Lolich: I sit around with people all the time, and tell baseball stories about the Tigers and my life and that type of stuff. And people are always saying ‘you should write a book.’ I sort of always put it off. And then I came to realize one day that I had three daughters. And those daughters were quite young during my baseball career and really didn’t know too much about the game or what I did in my lifetime. Then I have grandsons that don’t really know anything about what I did. So I figured I’d tell my life story of how I grew up, what I did in those days that led to me being a baseball player. I also mix in the World Series games 1 through 7 and what happened in those games. I put the book together and we got it on the market and are getting a lot of compliments about it.

Pat Batcheller: What will readers learn about you that they might not have known before?

Mickey Lolich: Well, maybe one thing—that they saw me pitch left-handed, but I’m right-handed. It sort of shocks people when they learn about that.

Pat Batcheller: How did you become a lefty?

Mickey Lolich: One day I was out riding in Portland, Oregon. That’s where I’m from. I was 2 years old. I was riding my hot-rod tricycle down the sidewalk. And I lost control of it, I went off the curb. And parked there was an Indian motorcycle. And I hit the kickstand and the bike came down on top of me and broke my left collarbone in two places. Well, back in 1942, they just sort of strapped your arm across your chest and wait for it to heal. When they took the bindings off, I had total atrophy in my left arm. It wasn’t working at all. So my parents had an exercise program, moving my arm in front of my chest, and back-and-forth. Then they took to putting it up and over my head like a throwing action.

Now, at that age, I was fascinated with picking up little trucks and cars and throwing them with my right arm. And when they saw me throwing things, they’d go, “wait a minute, we’ve got to strengthen his left arm.” So the next move would put my folks in jail now. They tied my right arm behind my back and made me use my left hand. Well, I still wanted to throw those little cars and trucks, so I threw them left-handed. And when I built up good strength in my arm, they untied my arm in the back and let me use whatever hand I wanted to. But I continued to eat, write, or whatever I did right-handed. But when it came to a throwing action, I always threw left-handed. And that’s how I became a left-handed pitcher.

The career that almost ended before greatness

Pat Batcheller: Your career as a Tiger almost ended before it began when you briefly quit baseball at age 21. What led to that decision?

Mickey Lolich: I was playing down in Knoxville, Tennessee. I had a bad outing and things didn’t go real well for me at all. And when the game was over, the manager of the team held a clubhouse meeting, called me up to stand alongside him and, in my opinion, ridiculed me far and above what he should have done. And I said, “OK,” and then they sent me off to Durham, North Carolina to play. Well, the next year, I was pitching AAA for Denver. And I was having a few problems at the beginning of the season. And the general manager in charge of the minors decided to send me to go to Knoxville. I said, “I refuse to go to Knoxville, I will not play for that manager again.” He [General Manager Jim Campbell] says “I’m in charge, and you’ll go where you’re going!” So I got an airplane ticket for Knoxville, I went to the airport, and cashed it in for a ticket to Portland, where I lived. When I got there, I called Campbell and said “I refuse to report to Knoxville and I am retiring from baseball.” And that’s what happened.

Pat Batcheller: Why did you come back?

Mickey Lolich: I got involved in pitching in an amateur game for a local team, my neighborhood team. I pitched relief one night for them. I struck out 16 guys in five innings—the catcher missed a pitch and I had to get the next guy. The headlines hit the paper, and went back east to Jim Campbell. He said, “Are you ready to go to Knoxville?” I said, “I told you I’m not going.” He said, “Well, I made a deal with the Portland team,” which happened to be a Kansas City Athletics affiliate at the time. Campbell said, “they would like to buy you, and I refused to sell you. But I will loan you out to Portland, your hometown team, and you can pitch there if you’ll agree to that.” And I said, “OK, I’ll play there.”

And that year I ran into a pitching coach for the Portland team by the name of Jerry Staley, a guy that happened to pitch once for Detroit. And he taught me how to throw the sinking fastball. I never had a sinker, I was just a hard thrower. And it changed my whole life. The next year, I went to spring training with the Detroit Tigers, the big club. I pitched 18 scoreless innings in spring training, but I didn’t make the club. Jim Campbell had to show me he was still the boss. He sent me to Syracuse, where I was for about a month. Frank Lary got hurt on Opening Day and they sent him to Knoxville—I felt sorry for the guy. They told me I was coming up for 30 days to fill in for Frank Lary, and then I’d go back to the minors. Well, that didn’t quite work out. 16 years later, I officially retired from baseball.

Looking back at the ’68 World Series, baseball today

Pat Batcheller: In your research for the book, you had a chance to watch replays of the 1968 World Series on YouTube. What do you notice now when you watch games that you pitched that you didn’t notice or didn’t remember before?

Mickey Lolich: Well, first off, it’s the first time I’ve seen replays of the World Series. I’d never seen it. We watched all seven games. The thing I noticed, referring to me, is that I was taught the first three pitches you throw, two have to be strikes. You go right after the hitters. Today, they nibble at the corners way too much. And another thing I noticed was I used to finish games and today, they don’t. They’re geared to pitch six innings and that’s it. Baseball has changed a lot.

Pat Batcheller: Do you watch baseball now?

Mickey Lolich: Yeah, I watch it. I follow the Tigers, you know, to see what’s going on, win or lose. This year’s been a losing season, but don’t worry, they’re rebuilding. We’ll see how long that takes. 

Pat Batcheller: Those who talk about the 1968 World Series often talk about how badly Detroit needed something to feel good about after the riots the year before and how the Tigers gave them that. Many of the problems that existed 50 years ago are still here today. Detroit has not yet fully healed. But you had no way of knowing back in 1968 what 2018 would be like. Do you still feel as if you and your teammates did something good for Detroit?

Mickey Lolich: Yeah, we all believe we did something good. I remember there were some police officers who worked at Tiger Stadium. One of them told me that in 1967, you’d see three fellas standing on a street corner, and they were looking for trouble. How they knew, I don’t know, I guess police officers can sense things like that. And then they said in 1968, you’d see the same three guys standing on the street corner and they had a transistor radio up to their ears and were listening to Tiger ballgames. And they’d say, “We think you guys prevented anything from happening again in the summer of ’68.” Now that’s what I was told, and I’m glad I can believe them.

Pat Batcheller: And you were there, of course…

Returning to Detroit

Mickey Lolich: The city of Detroit has come back a lot. The downtown area, you can see all the buildings that have gone up and the jobs that are down there. I’m glad Detroit’s coming back.

Pat Batcheller: You were at the 50th anniversary celebration at Comerica Park. How did it feel to be back with your teammates and in uniform?

Mickey Lolich: Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to pitch. It was a wonderful weekend for us. I have to congratulate the Tigers on doing it first-class. It was wonderful to see the players that I played with. We were all wearing baseball hats, and on those hats, were the numbers and initials of all the Tigers that were on the ’68 team who have passed away. So in our own little way, we’re paying tribute to our former teammates who couldn’t be there on that Saturday. It was done right, and I really enjoyed it.

The Michigan Department of Transportation has big plans for I-94 in western Wayne County. 

Crews will rebuild and repair the freeway between I-275 and Michigan Ave. at the Detroit-Dearborn city limits. 

MDOT project engineer Bill Erben says the work will start with clearing shoulders and medians in February. Erben says that includes removing some trees.

“For every tree that we cut, we replace trees at the end,” he says.

February weather is notoriously unpredictable, so the timing is important—especially for wildlife.

“There’s a prohibition on cutting trees during the season that’s conducive to bats mating,” Erben says. “So, we have to get the tree removal done from an environmental standpoint.”

Reconstruction and rehabilitation

Erben says the Restore 94 project has two main components—rebuilding and repairing.

“We start just to the east of Wayne Road and it’s all-new pavement through Beech Daly,” he says. “And then there’s significant section of pavement on westbound 94 from Southfield to the [Ford] Rouge [complex] that will get replaced as well.”

Between I-275 and Michigan Ave., MDOT will install five new bridges and create a new interchange at Ecorse Rd.

Spokesperson Diane Cross says drivers will have access to Metro Airport at all times.

“Drivers will always have I-275, which we redid in the last couple of years,” she says. “If we’re working at Merriman Rd., we’ll make sure Middle Belt Rd. is open and vice versa.”

Getting around it won’t be easy

MDOT plans to shift traffic from one side of the freeway to the other, starting with the westbound lanes. That will reduce traffic from six lanes to four. Erben says the goal is to keep traffic moving on 94 throughout the project.

“There will be local detours, but the bulk of the project is to try to maintain traffic on the freeway,” he says. “We’ll have temporary ramps that will carry traffic from one side to the other.”

The three-year project will affect homes and businesses along 94 in Allen Park, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Melvindale, Romulus and Taylor. That includes the Ford Rouge complex.

Erben says he’s listening to stakeholders. “We’ve met with Ford already, we’ve met with the mayor of Taylor,” he says. “We’re going to do whatever we can to keep that line of communication open.”

Toward that end, MDOT has two public meetings on the project. The first takes place at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the Allen Park Department of Public Services on West Outer Drive. The second happens at 4 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Taylor City Hall on Goddard. 

The owners of the Detroit Free Press plan to acquire the Detroit News.

USA Today‘s announcement comes less than a month after Michigan’s largest daily newspapers ended a joint operating agreement they entered in 1989.

The Free Press was failing at the time. The JOA allowed both papers to maintain separate newsrooms while combining other parts of their businesses such as printing.

The JOA ended in December 2025. Shortly thereafter, the News announced plans to print its first separate Sunday edition in 36 years. Then it delayed the Sunday paper rollout a few days before USA Today’s takeover announcement.

What happens now?

USA Today CEO Mike Reed says the company will continue to publish separate editions. But for how long?

Bill Shea is a writer based in Hazel Park. He wrote about the city’s newspapers for Crain’s Detroit Business for more than a decade. He also worked for USA Today’s predecessor, Gannett. Shea says before they became partners, the papers were fierce competitors.

“These newsrooms used to have hundreds and hundreds of people in all the various roles,” he says. “Reporters, editors, photographers, copy editors…the whole gamut.”

But as technology changed, so did readers’ habits.

“Customers no longer wanted print as much as they used to,” Shea says.

Both papers have a strong online presence. Shea says that will allow them to stay the course editorially in the short term.

“They both get a lot of eyeballs digitally,” he says. “Maintaining separate newsrooms to keep that up is probably the path for now.”

Is a one-paper town inevitable?

But Shea warns that the new owners might lay off reporters to maximize profits.

“I fully expect to hear the crappy corporate-speak of ‘finding efficiencies to better serve our readers and partners,’ which just means job cuts,” he says.

Shea says fewer journalists means fewer stories to cover. He says that would hurt readers, too.

“Because you’re losing out on that vital storytelling in an age where we absolutely need…as many people as possible telling these stories, holding power and capital accountable,” he says.

USA Today said it expected to close the deal before the end of January. It would not say how much it’s paying to acquire the News or whether it will follow through with a separate Sunday edition.

Detroit’s automakers have scaled back electric vehicle production due to sluggish sales and other factors.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence says overall EV sales in the U.S. grew by 1% in 2025. That includes plug-in hybrids.

Political pressure hasn’t helped. President Donald Trump favors internal combustion engines and rolled back his predecessor’s push to build more EVs. He rescinded higher fuel economy standards and tried to block federal funding for EV charging stations.

Congress eliminated the $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers, giving consumers less incentive to purchase one.

Despite that, EV advocates see better days ahead.

EVs enjoy high customer satisfaction

Jennifer Mefford is the director of business development for Powering Michigan’s Future. It’s a partnership between the National Electrical Contractors Association and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 58.

Mefford says customer satisfaction gives her hope.

“EV owners love their EVs,” she says. “And the technology is very sound and developed.”

Mefford notes that the market has already survived some ups and downs.

“We had a big resurgence when GM launched the Volt, and then the market kind of went flat,” she says.  “I think we’re poised very well because the technology is there, the battery development is there, and the charging infrastructure is there.”

EVs are still visible

Powering Michigan’s Future has a display at the 2026 Detroit Auto Show. Mefford says it’s there to answer people’s questions about electric vehicles. She says the questions most people have are about charging them.

“80% of your charging is going to be done at home,” she says. “What are the cost considerations for that? Do they want to hook into DTE Energy’s charging rates? How does it work when they’re out in public spaces?”

Mefford says Michigan has done a good job building out its EV charging infrastructure.

“It’s all new equipment,” she says. “It’s very reliable and it’s really quite user-friendly.”

In the early days, EVs suffered from limited range. Mefford says that, too, has gotten better.

“You have a group of vehicles in the 240 to 320-mile range,” she says. “I think ranges are always going to get better, batteries are much more efficient, and costs are coming down.”

But Mefford admits Michigan and the U.S. have a long way to go to catch China, where EV sales grew 17% in 2025.

Is it time to rewrite Michigan’s constitution? Voters will answer that question in 2026.

A ballot proposal asks whether state residents want to call a constitutional convention. The last one happened in 1961. Voters approved a new constitution in 1962.

By law, the issue must appear on the ballot every 16 years. Voters rejected convention calls in 1978, 1994, and 2010.

Justin Long is an associate professor at Wayne State University’s School of Law. He’s an expert on state constitutions, including Michigan’s. He says the 16-year cycle gives voters time to think about how state government works and whether to change it.

“The thought was if there’s something seriously wrong with the structure of state government, it’ll take us a few years to figure it out,” he says. We’ll give it a try for a few years, and by 16 years, it’s time to decide whether it’s working or not.”

What does it say?

Proposal 1 will appear on the November 2026 ballot as follows:

A PROPOSAL TO CONVENE A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PURPOSE OF DRAFTING A GENERAL REVISION OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION

Shall a convention of elected delegates be convened in 2027 to draft a general revision of the State Constitution for presentation to the state’s voters for their approval or rejection?

Voters can either say “yes” or “no.”

It’s not a popular question

So why haven’t voters felt the need to call for a new convention in over 60 years? Long says caution may be one reason.

“I think neither political party [Democratic or Republican] feels assured that they’ll be able to control the convention, because delegates are elected directly by the people,” he says. “And the delegates would presumably know that if they did anything too wild, the voters wouldn’t pass it.”

That said, delegates could either tweak parts of the constitution or rewrite the entire document. For example, Long says they could decide which offices get elected and which ones don’t.

“They could decide whether we want to have two houses of the Legislature or just one,” he says. “They’re basically unfettered at that point.”

What happens at a ConCon?

If voters do call for a constitutional convention, another election would take place within six months. Long says that’s when voters would choose delegates.

“There’d be one delegate elected from every House district and one from every Senate district,” he says. “They would then hire staff, and then they would meet and debate.”

Long says once the delegates have drafted a new constitution, they submit it to the voters.

“And that vote would be by a simple majority,” he says.

If voters say no to a constitutional convention this year, it wouldn’t come up again until 2042.

Want to add some vigor to your vocabulary in 2026? Wayne State University can help you with that.

Every year, a group of “Word Warriors” publish a list of words that people don’t use much anymore, hoping to revive them.

It’s a counterpoint to Lake Superior State University‘s annual “banished words” list.

Chris Williams works in WSU’s Communications and Marketing Department. He says both lists have one thing in common: nominations from people who love language.

“I’ve received submissions from as far as Australia,” he says. “We have Word Warriors everywhere.”

Williams says the list celebrates the joy and precision of language.

“We don’t want to deny people to use words,” he says.

What do they mean?

The 17th Word Warriors list follows with definitions and ways to use them in a sentence:

Abnegate – To renounce or reject (something desired or valuable). “He abnegated the family inheritance to make a name for himself on his own.”

Abscond – To leave hurriedly and secretly, typically to avoid detection of or arrest for an unlawful action such as theft. “The burglar absconded with the money before anyone noticed he’d entered the house.”

Coterie – A small group of people with shared interests or tastes, especially one that is exclusive of other people. “He retreated to an online chat room, where he could be surrounded by a coterie of fellow enthusiasts.”

Fluckadrift – Excessive speed or urgency of movement or action. “The kids spent most of the summer day rotting around the house but moved with a frantic fluckadrift to straighten things up once they knew Mom was on her way home from the office.”

Gudgeon – A person who is easily fooled; a gullible person. “The gudgeon believed almost everything he was told, no matter how improbable.”

Inchoate – Something just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary. “The inchoate organization was a mess of squabbling and confusion as the members learned how to work with each other.”

Psithurism – A rustling or whispering sound, such as leaves in the wind; susurration. “He left his earbuds at home and took a long walk in the woods, the blathering of podcasts replaced by the soothing soundtrack provided by the psithurism in the trees.”

Quanked – Overpowered by fatigue; exhausted or having one’s energy consumed. “After spending all of his Thanksgiving weekend managing the demands of customers, he was positively quanked and slept for 12 hours.”

Snoutfair – Having an attractive or pleasing face. “His character might leave much to be desired, but his snoutfair appearance made him a hit on TV.”

Swullocking – Overwhelmingly hot, boiling and humid weather. “He stepped outside, bracing himself for the swullocking August day.”

Anyone can submit a word

Williams says the Word Warriors are always looking for suggestions.

“Anyone who has access to our website can submit a word,” he says. “Every Monday, we post a new word.”

Lake Superior State University has the perfect way to celebrate 2026, by banishing the word “perfect” and nine other terms from the English language.

The school in Sault Ste. Marie, MI has collected submissions from around the world since publishing its first “banished words” list in 1976. 

What started as a fun New Year’s Eve party suggestion has become an annual tradition.

University President David Travis says faculty members sifted through 1,400 submissions to curate its 50th list.

“What they look for are classic examples of overuse, misuse, and simply words that are useless,” he says. “And they come up with the top ten.”

The judges don’t limit their choices to words. They also consider choice phrases, such as “6-7,” which caught on in 2025.

Dr. Travis says “6-7” has no clear definition.

“It’s simply a fun word that people get excited about when they see the two numbers together,” he says.

Let’s get cooking

Here’s the complete list for 2025, with comments from people who nominated them:

1. 6-7 (six seven): “There are six or seven reasons why this phrase needs to be stopped,” says Paul E. from Wisconsin. The volume of submissions for this one could have taken up the whole list, at least slots 6-7. Scott T. from Utah adds, “it’s time for “6-7” to be 86’ed.”
2. Demure: “It’s very said more than very done, and we’re all very done hearing it!” remarks Tammy S. Often used in the phrase ‘very demure, very mindful,’ Madison C. shares that the overuse “waters down the real meaning.”
3. Cooked: “Hearing it…my brain feels ‘cooked,’” groans Zac A. from Virginia. Parents and guardians led the charge on this one, with some feeling this isn’t enough.
4. Massive: “Way overused! (often incorrectly),” exclaim Don and Gail K. from Minnesota. This word’s massive overuse has secured its place on this year’s list.
5. Incentivize: In the longstanding effort to turn nouns into verbs, this is another culprit. Two separate submissions likened hearing this word to “nails on a chalkboard.”
6. Full stop: “For the same reason ‘period’ was banished…redundant punctuation,” explains Marybeth A. from Oregon.
7. Perfect: “There are very few instances when the word actually applies,” notes Jo H. from California.
8. Gift/gifted (as a verb): “I found this on the 1994 list, but it will make me feel better to recommend that it be included once again,” reveals James S. from Oklahoma. Another case of a noun being used as a verb.
9. My bad: In the 1998 banishment, Elizabeth P. from Michigan suggested, “students and adults sound infantile when using this to apologize.”
10. Reach out: First banished in 1994, this saying has strayed from the positive message it once intended to deliver. “What started as a phrase with emotional support overtones has now become absurdly overused,” asserts Kevin B. from the United Kingdom.

It’s all in fun

The good news is no one’s going to arrest you if you use any of these words or phrases. Dr. Travis says it’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. But he admits not everyone takes it that way.

“We sometimes get a nasty letter from someone saying, ‘I refuse to stop saying that word,'” he says. “And we just kind of smile and chuckle because they thought we were being really serious.”

The Great Lakes Water Authority has started building a new tunnel in southwest Detroit. The project will divert excess stormwater from a large sewer line along the Rouge River to a retention and treatment basin nearby.

Potential to address a longstanding problem

GLWA Chief Operating Officer Navid Mehram says the tunnel will reduce the risk of flooding. Additionally, it should mean fewer basement sewage backups during heavy rain. “We’re making an investment in our existing system by rerouting some flows, so that we can leverage an existing facility that wasn’t receiving all the flow it can treat,” Mehram says.

The tunnel will be almost 4,000 feet long and several feet wide. Nehram says GLWA expects to finish the job in 2028. “Our projects are very large,” he says. “This is a tunneling project, which is extremely complicated.” Besides reducing sewage backups, Mehram says the project will also make the system more resilient to heavy rain. “This not only provides us with water quality improvements along the Rouge River, but it can also provide a backup for our Water Resource Recovery Facility,” he says.

Who’s paying for it?

The project will cost $87 million. Mehram says GLWA will use both government grants and sewer rate revenues to pay for it. He says it will not increase customers’ bills.

This year’s harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie was among the mildest this century.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors the development of algae in the lake each year.

On a scale of 1 to 10, NOAA rated this year’s bloom between 2 and 3, which is mild. Compare that with 2011’s very severe bloom, which peaked between 9 and 10.

NOAA researcher Rick Stumpf says each bloom is different. He and his colleagues use several factors to rate each one.

“The mildness is a reflection of how much bloom there is,” he says. “The amount of biomass, the quantity, and how severe it is over the peak 30 days.”

Weather is a big factor

The amount of rainfall in the spring also affects the bloom’s development. Algae feed on phosphorus, a common chemical in farm fertilizer. When farmers apply it to their fields, rain will wash some of it into streams and creeks. That water then flows into the lake through the Maumee River in Ohio.

Stumpf says lower-than-average rainfall in 2025 meant less phosphorus for algae to consume, and thus a milder bloom. He also says this year’s growth started later than usual.

“The last few years, the bloom’s been pretty well-developed in July,” Stumpf says. “This year, it wasn’t until well into August when you had the greatest quantity of bloom.”

Stumpf says one way farmers can limit the amount of phosphorus in the lake is to test their fields for it early.

“If you’ve got enough phosphorus in the field, you may not have to fertilize for a couple of years, and that can make a big difference.”

Navigating the shutdown

Stumpf says the federal government shutdown in October did affect some of NOAA’s observations. But he says by then, researchers had enough data to rate the bloom accurately.

“We do a lot with satellite data, and that data has continued throughout this year’s bloom,” he says.

That data will also help NOAA figure out what other factors affect harmful algal blooms and how they’ve changed over the last 25 years.

Size doesn’t always matter

The size of each bloom doesn’t necessarily reflect how toxic it is. For example, the 2014 bloom was rated moderate to severe (5 out of 10). But it produced enough toxin to contaminate Toledo’s municipal water system that year.

In general, Stumpf says algal blooms can harm people and animals who are exposed to them. He says the best way to prevent that is to avoid areas of green scum on the surface of the lake.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is urging people who can get this season’s flu shot to do so.

So far, the agency says about 20% of those eligible to receive the vaccine have been immunized.

New strain appears in the UK

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian is the state’s chief medical executive. She says a new variant of H3N2 influenza is causing severe cases of flu in England.

“What’s happening in Europe and England is sometimes a harbinger of what’s to come in places like Michigan,” she says. “And what we’ve been seeing [there] is an early flu season and a more severe flu season.”

Early studies have shown that this season’s flu vaccine offers some protection against the new variant.

“In England, they’ve seen that in folks under 18, the vaccine is about 75% protective in terms of keeping them out of the emergency department and the hospital,” Bagdasarian says. “It’s about 40% effective in those over 18.”

While the vaccine does not prevent all cases, Bagdasarian says it does reduce one’s chances of getting really sick.

“What we’re trying to do here is not stop all cases of the flu, but we want to keep people out of the hospital, the ICU, and stop them from dying,” she says.

Vaccinations have been declining since COVID

As for the low vaccination rate this season, Bagdasarian says it’s a trend. Fewer people have been getting annual flu shots since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She worries that an outbreak of severe flu might overwhelm Michigan’s hospitals.

“When our health systems are full of people with influenza, that means there’s less care to go around,” she says. “None of us want to see a health system that’s overwhelmed with flu cases.”

Bagdasarian says fewer children are receiving routine vaccinations for other diseases such as measles and polio. She fears that recent developments at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could make that worse.

Skeptics turn health policy on its head

For example, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently recommended that children should only receive the hepatitis B vaccine if their mothers have tested positive or their status is unknown. Decades of research have shown that immunizing newborns against the virus is safe and has drastically reduced childhood cases of hepatitis B and other liver disease.

Bagdasarian attended the ACIP meeting virtually. She questions the qualifications of many who spoke.

“There were not enough scientists,” she says. “There were not enough health professionals, pediatricians, physicians.”

Instead, Bagdasarian notes that some of the presenters had non-medical backgrounds and don’t understand health care. She says that jeopardizes America’s health policies.

“The recommendations they voted on are liable to cause increased confusion and hesitancy and maybe put obstacles in people’s place when they’re trying to get vaccines,” she says.

Bagdasarian’s specialty is infectious disease. She says she’s treated patients with end stage liver disease, measles, and other preventable illnesses. She does not want the U.S. to go back to the time when these things were common.

“Many of these vaccines are things that we took when we were kids,” she says. “To deprive our own children of these life-saving benefits is sad.”