16 Facts About Vaccination

Here are 16 Vaccination facts.

1-5 Vaccination Facts

1. Mississippi has the highest child vaccination rate of any state. – Source

2. The UK virtually eliminated salmonella by vaccinating chickens. The U.S. has declined to mandate such vaccinations. – Source

3. Seattle kids have a lower polio vaccination than the African country of Rwanda. – Source

4. Smallpox is the first and only disease that has ever been eradicated. Smallpox now only exists in high-security labs in Russia and the U.S. Vaccinations played a major role in achieving this eradication. – Source

5. During the American Revolutionary War, despite opposition from the Continental Congress, George Washington ordered the vaccination of 40,000 soldiers from smallpox, reducing the infection rate from 17% to 1%. – Source

6-10 Vaccination Facts

1. The term “vaccination” comes from the Latin word for cow, “vacca”. The first vaccination was for smallpox, and people were given cowpox to prevent them from getting smallpox. – Source

2. 10 years after Britain no longer made vaccinations mandatory, there was an outbreak that resulted in a number of teenagers contracting diseases. – Source

3. In the 1720s, Colonial America when inoculation, an early form of vaccination, was introduced by Cotton Mather it was met with resistance by the religious colonist. Someone even tried to bomb his home with a note “Cotton Mather, you dog, damn you. I’ll inoculate you with this, with a pox on you.” – Source

4. U.S. Military personnel can receive vaccinations not available to the general public, such as the Adenovirus vaccine. – Source

5. American microbiologist Maurice Ralph Hilleman is accredited with developing 8 of the 14 routine vaccinations used today, these being; Measles, Mumps, Hepatitis A & B, Chickenpox, Meningitis, Pneumonia, and Hemophilia influenza. – Source

11-16 Vaccination Facts

1. The Raggedy Ann doll was used as a symbol of children harmed by vaccines by the anti-vaccination movement in the early 1900’s. – Source

2. Pertussis vaccine effectiveness was only between 24% and 41% in children two to 18 years old after three years from the date of vaccination. – Source

3. The flu virus can be deadly for children with certain preexisting medical conditions. A recent study found that the flu vaccination cut the threat of flu-associated death for these children by 51%. – Source

4. According to a 2014 study, 85% of Americans who elected not to receive the measles vaccination did so for religious, philosophical, or personal reasons. – Source

5. One unvaccinated child caught the measles while on a trip to Europe in 2008. By the time his illness was diagnosed at home in San Diego, eleven other children in the U.S. had caught the disease and 70 others had to be quarantined. – Source

6. Disney World requires proof of vaccination for pets. – Source