Childhood vaccinations

The short version: the evidence for childhood vaccines is a mix of real disease reduction and real safety questions that the system has never answered with the right studies.

Let me be direct about what the evidence here actually shows and does not show. The rotavirus vaccine study [1] reports a real drop in hospitalizations: from about 74 per 100,000 children for gastroenteritis in 2000 to about 50 in 2009, and rotavirus-specific hospitalizations from 15 to about 5 per 100,000. That is a genuine benefit. The pneumococcal vaccine review [3] shows that vaccinating children reduced disease in older adults through herd protection, with invasive pneumococcal disease in seniors dropping from about 10 to about 4 per 100,000 in the UK. The hepatitis B vaccine review [4] shows that universal newborn vaccination in Taiwan cut chronic carrier rates from about 10.5% to 1.7%. These are real, measured reductions in serious disease.

But here is what the evidence also shows, and what the system does not advertise. A 2011 study across 34 countries [5] found that infant mortality rates correlated positively with the number of vaccine doses given: the United States gave 26 doses and had an infant mortality rate of 6.22 per 1,000, while Sweden gave 12 doses and had a rate of 2.75. This is correlation, not proof of causation, but it is the kind of signal that should trigger serious investigation. Instead, the response was to add more doses. The COVID vaccine study from 2025 [2] estimated that adult COVID vaccination was associated with increased all-cause mortality in unvaccinated children in both US and European data. The authors estimated about 130,000 to 180,000 US deaths attributable to vaccination between February and August 2021, with a national average vaccine mortality rate of 0.04%. For children aged 0-17, the estimated lower-bound rate was 0.0045%.

The hepatitis B vaccine study [6] found that by age 10-11, only 30 out of 137 children still had protective antibody levels, and 70 had undetectable antibodies. After a challenge dose, most responded, but that tells you the vaccine-induced immunity wanes substantially. The question nobody answers honestly is what happens during the gap between waning antibodies and the next exposure.

The funding picture matters. The hexavalent vaccine trials [7, 8] were funded by the manufacturers. The rotavirus study [1] was funded by the CDC. The pneumococcal review [3] cites manufacturer-funded trials like CAPiTA. The COVID vaccine study [2] was published in a journal outside the mainstream, but its findings are consistent with what passive surveillance systems like VAERS would miss by design.

My call: some childhood vaccines have shown real reductions in serious disease, especially rotavirus and hepatitis B in high-endemicity settings. But the safety evidence is structurally incomplete. No trial has compared vaccinated children to truly unvaccinated children over the long term. No study has tracked the cumulative effect of 26+ doses on immune development, colloidal stability, or long-term all-cause mortality. The burden of proof has not been met for the full schedule, especially for low-risk children in low-disease settings. Confidence: moderate that some vaccines benefit some children, low that the full schedule is safe for all children.