It is a mistake to claim that there is not widespread research into the effectiveness of vaccines, especially those given to children. This research is comprehensive and ongoing, and even recently-developed vaccines receive extensive testing for safety and efficacy before being released on the market, as well as continuing research as to what the results of these vaccine programs are.

Two recently-released vaccines became widely available to pregnant mothers and newborn babies in the last few years for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the number one cause of infant hospitalizations in the U.S. One vaccine is given to mothers before the baby’s birth in order to provide antibodies in utero and the other is a monoclonal antibody given to young babies.

According to immunization records, the number of infants protected by one of the two products more than doubled between October of 2024 and February of 2025: from 30 percent to 66 percent.

And, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control, the resulting decrease in infant hospitalization has been similarly striking.

Two different data networks were consulted in this study, the RSV-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (RSV-NET) and New Vaccine Surveillance Network (NVSN) and researchers compared infanta hospitalization rates for the past season with those between 2018 and 2020.

By some estimations, hospital rates for babies under eight months fell as much as forty-six percent. The findings were even higher when specialized to babies under two months. During the same period, hospital intake for RSV infections rose for older babies who were not eligible to receive the vaccine.

According to the CDC study, “These findings support Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations for maternal vaccination or nirsevimab to protect against severe RSV disease in infants and highlight the importance of implementing the recommendations to protect infants as early in the RSV season as possible, before peak transmission, and for infants born during the RSV season, within the first week of life, ideally during the birth hospitalization.”

This new data suggests that a simple jab can protect many babies from severe illness.

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