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Vaccination is unquestionably one of the most important scientific accomplishments of the past century. To examine the effects of national immunization programs, investigators compared hospitalization and fatality rates for several vaccine-preventable diseases before (based on the best available historical data) and after (based on rates reported to the CDC from 2004 through 2006) implementation of national vaccination recommendations for these diseases.
For diseases with vaccines that were licensed or recommended before 1980 (diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, rubella, smallpox, and tetanus), the decline in the number of cases from the prevaccine period to the most recent 2006 estimates ranged from 92% to 100%, and the decline in…