Childhood Chickenpox Shots May Be Slashing Shingles Cases Decades Later—by Quite a Bit
Millennials across America (at least in our own minds) have a lot to grouse over: graduating into a labor market ravaged by the 2008 financial crisis, hamstrung by arcane systems of predatory student loan debt, and an eternal guilt by association with twee music and “awesomesauce” memes. Researchers with Epic, a public benefit corporation, attributed this generational divide on the disease—essentially a reactivation of the same varicella-zoster virus that causes chickenpox in children—to the U.S. chickenpox vaccination program instituted in 1995. The oldest cohort that Epic’s researchers looked at, elder Gen Xers born between 1968 and 1975, contracted shingles at an average rate of 181.9 cases per 10,000 people, roughly 26 times that of the youngest adults born between 2006 and 2008.
- ▪Millennials across America (at least in our own minds) have a lot to grouse over: graduating into a labor market ravaged by the 2008 financial crisis, hamstrung by arcane systems of predatory student loan debt, and an eternal guilt by assoc
- ▪Researchers with Epic, a public benefit corporation, attributed this generational divide on the disease—essentially a reactivation of the same varicella-zoster virus that causes chickenpox in children—to the U.S. chickenpox vaccination prog
- ▪The oldest cohort that Epic’s researchers looked at, elder Gen Xers born between 1968 and 1975, contracted shingles at an average rate of 181.9 cases per 10,000 people, roughly 26 times that of the youngest adults born between 2006 and 2008
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| Original publisher | Gizmodo |
| Canonical URL | https://gizmodo.com/childhood-chickenpox-shots-may-be-slashing-shingles-cases-decades-later-by-quite-a-bit-2000821061 |
| Publication time | Fri, 02 Oct 2026 21:20:51 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-02T21:26:16.296Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-02T21:26:16.296Z |
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| Cluster | xpN6UQDHA-KZ · 1 stories |
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Millennials across America (at least in our own minds) have a lot to grouse over: graduating into a labor market ravaged by the 2008 financial crisis, hamstrung by arcane systems of predatory student loan debt, and an eternal guilt by association with twee music and “awesomesauce” memes. But there is at least one great silver lining.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"92b7b46b-43ed-4e0e-b21b-2c999302d9d7","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.gizmodo.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"2000821061","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"science","SECTION":"health","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"health","TAGS":"health-policy,rfk-jr,shingles,vaccines","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); A sprawling examination of the medical…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Gizmodo.
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