There’s no way to put a price on the pain and suffering prevented by childhood vaccines. But as it turns out, you can pinpoint the savings to the country.
For nearly three decades, childhood vaccines — including those that target measles, tetanus and diphtheria — have saved the United States $540 billion in health care costs, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Routine childhood vaccinations have prevented approximately 508 million cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations and 1,129,000 deaths, the agency estimated on Thursday.
“These vaccine programs, when you create the right infrastructure to implement them, they pay for themselves right away,” said William Padula, a health economist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the new research.
The savings estimate includes money that would have been spent on treating the initial infection and managing later, related conditions. The figure dwarfs the cost of developing the shots.
But vaccine-preventable illnesses can also cause indirect economic effects if children become permanently disabled from an infection, or parents miss work while caring for their sick children.
