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It is estimated that vaccines have prevented 154 million deaths since the launch of EPI. That number includes 146 million children under the age of five. Vaccination efforts are estimated to have reduced infant mortality by 40% and contributed an additional 10 billion years of healthy life to the global population.
Vaccinating children is a success story. But concerns about the vaccine persist. Especially, it seems, among the individuals Donald Trump has chosen since January as his picks to lead America’s health care agencies. This week, let’s look at their claims and where the evidence really stands on childhood vaccines.
WHO, together with health agencies around the world, recommends a vaccination package for babies and young children. Some, such as the BCG vaccine, which offers some protection against tuberculosis, are recommended from birth. Others, such as the pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines, which are often given in a single injection, are given at eight weeks. Other vaccinations and vaccinations follow.
The idea is to protect babies as soon as possible, says Kaja Abbas of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK and Nagasaki University in Japan.
The full schedule of vaccines will depend on which infections pose the greatest risk and will vary from country to country. In the US, the recommended schedule is determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and individual states may decide to set vaccine mandates or allow various exemptions.
Some scientists worry that those rules could change in January, when Donald Trump returns to the White House. Trump has already listed his picks for top government officials, including those to lead the nation’s health agencies. Those individuals must be confirmed by the Senate before they can take on those roles, but Trump appears intent on surrounding himself with vaccine skeptics.
To begin with, Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, who has long been a prominent anti-vaxxer, has a track record of spreading false information about vaccines.
