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Understand How Partners and Neighbors have been Affected by Vaccine Preventable Diseases – with Impacts that Last a Lifetime.

Vaccines prevent potentially fatal diseases. Vaccines have a high degree of safety, and their safety is constantly evaluated and reevaluated in a system operating independently from the pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines.

Vaccines have been around since the 1940s – they are proven to save lives.

We’re not just doctors and public health officials. We are parents and patients too, and we vaccinated our children, and ourselves. We can – and do – keep our families safe by vaccinating from life-threatening diseases.

When parents don’t vaccinate their children, community rates drop. This is why we’re seeing outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable diseases.

This year in AZ we have experienced cases of measles, mumps, hepatitis A, whooping cough, and chickenpox.

When we talk to parents whose children become victim to these diseases, they are heartbroken at the realization they could have prevented their child’s suffering with a vaccine or in some instances saved their life.

We live in a global society. These diseases still proliferate in other countries and are just a plane ride away. AZ needs to keep our immunization rates high enough so we protect all of our vulnerable residents.

Before a vaccine is added to the schedule, ACIP evaluates the cost savings compared to the cost of treating the diseases.

For every $1 spent on vaccines we save $16 in direct health care costs and $28 in indirect costs.

States, cities, and towns with lower vaccination rates have higher rates of life-threatening diseases. Even if children are vaccinated, this still puts them at some level of risk.

A 2018 study showed Arizonan’s spent $322 million on the treatment of vaccine-preventable diseases.