Do chickenpox vaccines cause deadlier epidemics?

In an old NewsNation Town Hall, RFK Jr claims that chickenpox vaccines cause more deaths through shingles epidemics.

At first, some people thought that older adults needed small, regular exposure to the chickenpox virus to help prevent shingles. But evidence in this study shows that this is not true.

The study looks at what happened in the United States after the chickenpox vaccine was introduced in 1996. Some people worried that if fewer children got chickenpox, more adults might get shingles later. This is because the chickenpox virus can stay in the body and sometimes come back as shingles.

The researchers reviewed many studies and found that the vaccine greatly lowered chickenpox cases—by more than 95% within 10 to 15 years. Most importantly, they found no evidence that the chickenpox vaccine caused shingles rates in adults to increase beyond what was already happening before the vaccine. Shingles cases in children have actually been decreasing.

Overall, the study shows that chickenpox vaccination helps prevent serious illness and does not seem to cause more shingles. This should reassure countries thinking about using the vaccine.

The tweet also claims that the British National Health Service website says chickenpox vaccines are not recommended because they cause shingles outbreaks later. But this is incorrect. The NHS now recommends adding the chickenpox vaccine to the routine children’s immunization program, and it has done so since 2023.