Vaccines save lives

​I’m sorry, I’m going to sound a little like a broken record… but this has to be said and repeated.
Vaccines save lives. That’s not opinion, it’s fact.

Despite RFK Jr.’s remarks leading us to believe otherwise, the data is overwhelming:
• Globally, vaccines have prevented 154 million deaths over the past 50 years — the equivalent of six lives saved every single minute (World Health Organization, 2024).
• In the United States, routine childhood vaccines since 1994 have prevented 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1.1 million deaths: saving the country $2.7 trillion in societal costs (CDC, 2024).
• COVID-19 vaccines alone saved nearly 20 million lives in the first year of rollout (Lancet, 2022). In Europe, they reduced deaths by at least 57%, sparing 1.4 million lives (European CDC, 2023). In Latin America, they prevented up to 2.6 million deaths in 17 countries (PAHO, 2023).
So when Kennedy Jr. claims “nobody knows how many lives were saved” — and cuts $500 million from mRNA vaccine research,  it’s simply untrue, reckless political spin. It undermines and weakens trust, leaving millions vulnerable.

Honestly, I’m frustrated. In this day and age, it is incomprehensible that in the United States we are still forced to argue for vaccines. This conversation doesn’t play out in other Western democracies at a governmental level. They debate many things, but not whether life-saving vaccines work.
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The truth is simple: vaccines are one of humanity’s greatest life-saving tools. Ignoring that doesn’t make it less true!


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