Over the past 50 years, vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives, as ordinary people chose to protect themselves, their children and their communities from diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis, polio, and rotavirus.
After decades of American children routinely receiving polio vaccines, the virus that had doomed many to paralysis was nearly eliminated in the United States. But vaccine avoidance today may allow the crippling disease to return.
