Opinion: The danger of journals being seen as substitute regulators

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the risks associated with seeing journals as authoritative voices on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, says Dr Chris Van Tulleken (UCL Infection & Immunity). A superficial reading of the history of vaccination might lead you to believe that it is simple. Dried smallpox pustules had been used for 1,000 years to inoculate people against smallpox before the first successful vaccine trial, conducted by Edward Jenner in 1796 on a single eight-year-old boy. A more detailed reading, however, reveals two significant risks both extremely relevant in the current pandemic. The first is that bad vaccines don't just fail to protect, they can cause direct harm to patients. Some make subsequent infection with the disease they are intended to protect against more serious. The second risk is that trust in vaccines is easily damaged and slow to recover.