Vaccine vindication
1957: A teenage boy gets a polio vaccine shot while a group of children looks on.
© Jack Moebes/Corbis
At least 103 million cases of childhood disease have been prevented by vaccines since 1924, according to a new survey tracking reports of 56 diseases back to 1888.
Within five years of introducing the measles vaccine, 95 percent of cases were prevented. Some diseases have seen recent resurgences as parents delay or skip immunizations for their children; the worst whooping cough outbreak since 1959 occurred in 2012.
