Indy Digest: April 2, 2026
My father suffered from a bout of shingles while he was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. While the shingles were decidedly NOT fun, even worse was his case of postherpetic neuralgia: For the rest of his life, if a breeze hit his face at the right angle, it felt like hundreds of needles were attacking his skin.
I am now at that age—over 50—when doctors recommend the shingles vaccine, and after putting it off for a year or so, I decided yesterday that it was finally time to make an appointment. I went to the CVS website and made an appointment for 9:45 a.m. this morning. All told, I was at the CVS for less than 15 minutes, and I have now received one of the two recommended Shingrix doses. Since the second dose is recommended two to six months after the first, I set a calendar reminder in early June to make another vaccine appointment.
It was quick, easy and, since I have insurance, free. After my second appointment in June, I’ll know that I’ve lessened my risk, by 90 percent, of ever having to deal with the pain my father did. That’s pretty darned incredible, if you ask me.
Also incredible: The fact that most young adults in this country never had to worry about getting polio, or measles, or rubella, along with various other illnesses, because the diseases were eradicated in this country (a fact I’ve covered in this space before), thanks to the development of safe and effective vaccines. But that eradication status, at least for measles, is likely to be revoked.
Despite all of this incontrovertible evidence—even if you question the myriad studies about vaccines (and you have no reason to), just look around to see that people here don’t get polio any more—vaccines are under attack in this country. Seemingly every day, there’s a new news story about the vaccine science being set back.
Here are two from this week alone. First, from Reuters:
Vaccine makers Pfizer and BioNTech halted a large U.S. trial of their updated COVID-19 vaccine in healthy adults aged 50 to 64, saying enrollment in the trials had been too low to generate the needed data.
In a letter to trial investigators dated March 30, seen by Reuters and previously unreported, Pfizer said it would stop surveillance for signs of COVID illness of all participants in the study after April 3.
Enrollment was closed on March 6, following a review of current epidemiological trends, it said.
The move comes as COVID vaccine makers grapple with pushback from the U.S. administration and weak U.S. demand for the shots.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration toughened requirements for COVID vaccine use last year, including asking for large, placebo-controlled trials in the 50-64 age group for it to be included in recommendations.
Prior to the (Haemophilus influenzae type b, commonly called Hib) vaccine, about 20,000 children in the United States—mostly babies and toddlers— developed severe forms of Hib every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many children were left with permanent brain damage. About 1,000 children died each year.
After vaccinations began, the number of Hib infections dropped to fewer than 50 a year. Many doctors who’ve trained in the past 40 years have never seen a case.
Now, parents who haven’t experienced the frightening effects of the highly contagious and fast-moving infection are increasingly opting out of vaccinating their kids against Hib. Last week, the CDC reported that the percentage of babies who got the full series of Hib shots fell slightly from 2019 to 2021, from 78.8% to 77.6%.
Doctors … who a year ago was treating children hospitalized with measles during the West Texas outbreak, are sounding the alarm on Hib, fearing it could be the next vaccine-preventable disease to make a comeback.
From a couple of weeks back is this piece from ProPublica, headlined “How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues.” Key quote: “ProPublica reviewed hundreds of studies on vaccines and outbreaks of the diseases they prevent and interviewed more than three dozen people who have worked on U.S. immunization programs here and abroad, dating back to the days of smallpox. Some had never spoken publicly about their experiences. They shared a pit-of-the-stomach dread that American children will end up fighting for their lives against infections that have long been preventable.”
Pit-of-the-stomach dread.
Vaccines aren’t perfect—nothing in medicine is. Yes, there can be side effects and, in rare cases, adverse reactions, some serious. But again, the proof is incontrovertible: Vaccines save lives and decrease suffering.
I am grateful to live in a time and place where I can walk in to a drug store and get affordable, potentially life-saving vaccines—almost without delay. But because of the unbelievably dumb actions of RFK Jr. and co., there will be fewer vaccines, with less availability, in the future.
—Jimmy Boegle
