The Wall Street Journal published an article showing how vaccines have prevented over the decades and will prevent diseases far into the future. These charts clearly show how vaccines abruptly stopped various deadly and dangerous diseases right in their tracks.

With Trump nominating that pseudoscience-loving crackpot and anti-vaxxer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services, we know that he will be a catastrophe for public health, especially vaccines. He will cause problems with the whole process of vaccine development and approvals, plus he could stick his ignorant hand into the CDC, especially the role of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recommends vaccines for children and adults in the USA.

RFK Jr’s unscientific, conspiracy-filled beliefs about vaccines could make America Sick Again. Without vaccines, we will have outbreaks of diseases that most of us don’t even remember. Our hospitals, which could barely handle the COVID pandemic, will be flooded with children who have caught diseases that most physicians have never seen in their lives.

This article will present historical data in the USA that shows how vaccines have prevented and will prevent diseases.

Vaccines prevent diseases

Measles is prevented with the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella).

Within a few years of introducing the measles vaccine, the incidence of measles drops from the thousands per year to almost disappearing. Unfortunately, anti-vaccine myths about the MMR vaccine causing autism have led to a comeback in the disease.

Hepatitis A is prevented with the hepatitis A vaccine.

Mumps is prevented with the MMR vaccine.

Pertussis (whooping cough) is prevented with the Tdap (for children older than 7-years-old, teens, and adults) or DTaP (for children younger than 7) vaccines. The vaccine prevents diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.

Polio is prevented with the polio vaccine.

Rubella is prevented with the MMR vaccine.

Smallpox has gone effectively extinct due to mass vaccinations with the smallpox vaccine. However, the vaccine is still used by the military and others who may be at risk of biological weapons that contain smallpox. It is also available to prevent monkeypox.

Let me repeat — smallpox went extinct 50 years ago because of the vaccine.

Summary

These charts show how vaccines worked to eliminate diseases across the USA. I’m sure we could get the same graphs for the rest of the world that show the same successes.

Other than smallpox (which still could come back if some bad actor were to release the virus in a terrorist attack or biological warfare), all of the other diseases still circulate and are still endemic in many parts of the world. If the vaccination rate were to drop because of anti-vaxxer misinformation, especially with Robert F Kennedy Jr in control of the vaccine development and recommendation process, these diseases could come back. And they will kill our children.

Healthcare systems across the world are not set up for mass outbreaks of diseases like polio or measles. Again, look what happened with the COVID pandemic — the world’s hospitals lack the bed space and medical expertise to deal with it. If vaccines disappear suddenly, a measles outbreak will overwhelm our healthcare systems, and many children (and adults) will die.

These diseases are dangerous, and a daily organic, gluten-free, blueberry-kale smoothie will not stop them. They are prevented by vaccines, which we know are safe and effective — that is settled science, despite the disinformation campaign of anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr.

Although we have plenty of epidemiological data that provides solid evidence that vaccines have prevented these deadly and dangerous diseases, these charts make it really clear. Once vaccines were launched to the American public, the rates of the diseases dropped within a few months or years. It was dramatic.

Without a doubt, vaccines have safely saved lives over the decades. And we have proof.