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LOS ANGELES — Vaccinating children who are more than a year old against varicella, or chicken pox, also provides “tremendous indirect benefits” to young babies, researchers reported Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

The U.S. implemented a varicella vaccine program in 1995, offering the vaccine to children 12 months and older. But younger babies who aren’t old enough to get the vaccine are protected through so-called “herd immunity” — because fewer older kids develop chicken pox, the younger children are less likely to be exposed to the virus.

The researchers, including some from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studied data on chicken pox cases in the Antelope Valley near Los Angeles and in Philadelphia during the first 14 years the vaccine was available.