HEALTH & SCIENCE

Pricey vaccines for kids still public health bargains

Researchers say advance budgeting for the increased costs of childhood immunization is a wise move.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Feb. 17, 2003.

Washington -- The cost of childhood vaccines has risen over the past 26 years from $10 per child in 1975 to $385 in 2001, and those costs could take a giant leap upward when vaccines now in the pipeline become available.

The cost per child for recommended vaccines at public-sector prices may triple over the next two decades, warned a new vaccine study published in the December 2002 American Journal of Public Health.

The study was done, not to question the cost effectiveness of vaccines, but to serve as a warning to policy-makers that they should make sure there is enough money in the coffers to continue to cover the price tags of these valuable public health tools.

"In the past, vaccines were less expensive, and there may have been some impression on the part of officials that they would remain inexpensive," said Matthew Davis, MD, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

"Our analysis suggests that vaccines may be more expensive in the future than they have been in the past," said Dr. Davis. "But that's not to say that they are no longer an excellent investment in our children's health."

As the number of recommended vaccines for children has grown over the years, the role of the state and federal governments in financing their purchase for children who were in danger of going without has also increased. Currently, state and federal programs buy more than half of the vaccines sold in this country.

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