Measles vaccine was introduced in 1963 in the United States. Prior to 1963, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s own records, deaths per year from measles, which had reached a high of over 10,000 in the early 1920s, had already declined to almost none. Neil Miller writes, in Vaccines: Are They Really Safe And Effective? 2nd ed. (p. 27); “In 1957 the number of children who died with measles was about 93 or 94. Children may die ‘with measles’ but not ‘from measles.’… There were close to 1000 deaths from whooping cough in 1880; by 1920 the rate had declined to fewer than 400, and the rate continued to decline through 1940 (to fewer than 200), when the first vaccine was introduced. By the time the second vaccine was introduced in the late 50s, the death rate was already less than 50.
Polio vaccines were introduced in 1957. By then deaths from polio had declined to almost none (from over 40 in 1951). Death rates actually climbed (in the early 1960s) after the first polio vaccine was introduced.”
—From “A Special Section on Vaccines: Questioning Their Necessity and Governmental Mandates,” Vol. 17, No. 2, March/April 2008 (available in print or digital format), which contains a special section on vaccines and vaccine policy.