March 2020 … Vaccines protect children against diseases that historically have hurt children, according to Dr. Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In a video interview with Phillip, an East Norriton Middle School health reporter, Dr. Offit said vaccines create the immunity that would follow a natural infection “without having to pay the price of a natural infection.”

The interview is part of Health Beat Live, a new digital initiative by Healthy NewsWorks.

“If you look at what vaccines have done over the last 100 years, we live 30 years longer than we used to and a lot of that has to do with vaccines,” said Dr. Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is also a co-inventor of a vaccine to prevent against a life-threatening disease called rotavirus.

Phillip said he hopes that children watching the video would “not be scared of vaccines, because they help them.” Vaccines can help people “be immune from viruses and other diseases,” he said.