Episode 172 Childhood Vaccine Schedule 1: Let’s give it a shot

We’re already back with our first episode of season 8! This week and next, we’re exploring childhood vaccine schedules – what diseases they protect us from, how the schedule is arranged, and who decides on the vaccines to include and the timing of vaccinations. In this first episode, we start with a refresher on how vaccines work before running through the entire schedule we have here in the US, vaccine by vaccine, comparing pre- and post-vaccine mortality rates. We close out the episode by discussing why vaccination is so important, not just for personal protection but for our communities. Stay tuned for more childhood vaccine schedule talk next week!

Check out the full video for this episode on YouTube!

Vaccine Schedule, How Vaccines Work
TPWKY EPISODES
Episode 1 Influenza Will Kill You
Episode 7 Hit me with your best (polio) shot
Episode 16 Scratch and Sniff Diphtheria Membrane
Episode 21 Measles: The Worst Souvenir
Episode 26 Vaccines Part 1: Let’s hear it for Maurice
COVID-19 Series
Episode 44 Pertussis: Whoop Here It Is
Episode 64 Rubella: Timing is Everything
Episode 76 Chickenpox: There’s always a ‘but’
Episode 89 Hepatitis B: Hepatiti, Take 2
Episode 95 Tetanus: An inhuman calamity!
Episode 105 Down in the Mumps
Episode 110 Influenza, Take 2: Fowl Play
Episode 111 RSV: What’s syncytial anyway?
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES
Kayser, V. and Ramzan, I., 2021. Vaccines and vaccination: history and emerging issues. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 17(12), pp.5255-5268.
Venkatesan, Priya. “First RSV vaccine approvals.” The Lancet Microbe 4.8 (2023): e577.
Nair, Harish, et al. “Global burden of acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in young children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” The Lancet 375.9725 (2010): 1545-1555.
Zanetti, Alessandro R., Pierre Van Damme, and Daniel Shouval. “The global impact of vaccination against hepatitis B: a historical overview.” Vaccine 26.49 (2008): 6266-6273.
Du, Yuxia, et al. “Global burden and trends of rotavirus infection-associated deaths from 1990 to 2019: an observational trend study.” Virology journal 19.1 (2022): 166.
Chow, Maria Yui Kwan, Gulam Khandaker, and Peter McIntyre. “Global childhood deaths from pertussis: a historical review.” Clinical Infectious Diseases 63.suppl_4 (2016): S134-S141.
Wahl, Brian, et al. “Burden of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b disease in children in the era of conjugate vaccines: global, regional, and national estimates for 2000–15.” The Lancet Global Health 6.7 (2018): e744-e757.
eltola, Heikki. “Worldwide Haemophilus influenzae type b disease at the beginning of the 21st century: global analysis of the disease burden 25 years after the use of the polysaccharide vaccine and a decade after the advent of conjugates.” Clinical microbiology reviews 13.2 (2000): 302-317.
Bender, Rose Grace, et al. “Global, regional, and national incidence and mortality burden of non-COVID-19 lower respiratory infections and aetiologies, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.” The Lancet Infectious Diseases 24.9 (2024): 974-1002.
Bandyopadhyay, Ananda S., et al. “Polio vaccination: past, present and future.” Future microbiology 10.5 (2015): 791-808.
Pomeroy, Laura W., et al. “Mumps epidemic dynamics in the United States before vaccination (1923–1932).” Epidemics 44 (2023): 100700.
Cao, Guiying, et al. “The global trends and regional differences in incidence and mortality of hepatitis A from 1990 to 2019 and implications for its prevention.” Hepatology international 15.5 (2021): 1068-1082.
WEBSITES (WHO, CDC)
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/respiratory-syncytial-virus-(rsv)
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-schedules/child-adolescent-age.html
CDC. “Explaining how Vaccines work” Updated Aug 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/basics/explaining-how-vaccines-work.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b
https://www.who.int/westernpacific/health-topics/rotavirus-infections#tab=tab_1
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diarrhoeal-disease
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diphtheria
https://www.cdc.gov/tetanus/hcp/clinical-overview/index.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tetanus
https://www.who.int/health-topics/pertussis#tab=tab_1
https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/haemophilus-influenzae-type-b-(hib)
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/invasive-haemophilus-influenzae-disease/facts#:~:text=Haemophilus%20influenzae%20type%20b%20is%20responsible%20for%2095%25%20of%20all,variation%20within%20the%20different%20regions.
https://www.who.int/health-topics/poliomyelitis#tab=tab_1
WHO COVID-19 Dashboard: https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/cases
CDC FluView, Week 8, 2025. https://www.cdc.gov/fluview/surveillance/2025-week-08.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles
https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-policy-and-standards/standards-and-specifications/norms-and-standards/vaccine-standardization/mumps
https://www.cdc.gov/mumps/outbreaks/index.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rubella
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7308a2.htm
https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-policy-and-standards/standards-and-specifications/norms-and-standards/vaccine-standardization/varicella
https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/hcp/clinical-overview/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/hcp/clinical-overview/index.html#cdc_clinical_overview_pub_health-impact-of-u-s-varicella-vaccination-program
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a
https://www.cdc.gov/han/2024/han00505.html#:~:text=Meningococcal%20disease%2C%20caused%20by%20the,stages%2C%20a%20dark%20purple%20rash.

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