Program Mobilizing Families To Routinely Vaccinate Children Has Saved Millions Of Lives, Trillions Of Dollars, CDC Data Show

USA Today (8/8, Cuevas) reports, “A 30-year-old effort that mobilized families to get routine vaccines for children has saved a million lives and trillions of dollars, a new analysis found.” Looking at “money saved by averting deaths and medical bills from preventable but debilitating illnesses,” researchers found that Vaccines for Children, “established in 1994 following a deadly measles outbreak,” led to the prevention of “1.13 million deaths, 32 million hospitalizations and 508 million illnesses, according to a study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Thursday.” CNN (8/8, Howard) reports the “cumulative number of illnesses prevented in the study ranged from about 5,000 cases for tetanus to around 100 million for measles and varicella.” Researchers “also found that routine childhood vaccinations among children born between 1994 and 2023 yielded a net savings of $540 billion in direct costs, such as the medical care costs of treating an infection, and $2.7 trillion in societal costs, such as parents missing work to care for a sick child.”