In findings that offer compelling evidence of the power of childhood vaccines, a new government report shows the routine shots have prevented hundreds of millions of illnesses, tens of millions of hospitalizations and more than 1 million deaths among Americans born in the past 30 years.
The new data, published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzed the benefits of the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program, which was launched in 1994 to make childhood immunizations more affordable and accessible.