Vaccines have averted an estimated 154 million deaths since EPI was triggered. This figure includes 146 million children under the age of five. It is estimated that vaccination efforts have reduced child mortality by 40% and contributed to an additional 10 billion years of healthy life for the global population.
Childhood vaccination is a success story. However, concerns about vaccines remain. Especially, it seems, among the individuals Donald Trump has chosen as his choice to lead America’s health care agencies since January. This week, let’s look at their claims and where the evidence really stands on childhood vaccines.
The WHO, along with health agencies around the world, recommends a set of vaccinations for infants and young children. Some, such as the BCG vaccine, which offers some protection against tuberculosis, are recommended from birth. Others, such as whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines, which are often given at once, are introduced at eight weeks. Further vaccinations and booster doses follow.
The idea is to protect babies as soon as possible, says Kaja Abbas of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK and Nagasaki University in Japan.
The full vaccination schedule will depend on which infections pose the greatest risk and will vary by country. In the US, the recommended schedule is determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and individual states may choose to establish vaccination mandates or allow various exemptions.
Some pundits worry about how 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.
For starters, Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, who has long been a prominent anti-vaxxer, has a track record of spreading misinformation about vaccines.