Title:Vaccine Efficacy Denial: A Growing Concern Affecting Modern Science,
and Impacting Public Health
Volume: 22
Issue: 9
Author(s): Luca Signorini, Francesco Maria Ceruso, Elisabetta Aiello, Maria Josephine Zullo and Danila De Vito*
Affiliation:
- Department of Basic
Medical Sciences, Neurosciences and Sense Organs, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70124 Bari, Italy
Keywords:
Preventive medicine, public health, history of medicine, vaccines, pandemic, preventive medicine, modern science.
Abstract:
The discovery of the vaccination technique was revealed by Edward Jenner in 1796,
which represented the first scientific attempt to control an infectious disease by vaccines, followed
by other important studies carried out by Pasteur and Koch, and Sabin, who developed the
first technique to attenuate the virus. In recent decades, numerous scholars have begun to create
dangerous theories against the effectiveness of vaccines through scientifically invalid or fraudulent
studies.
This critical review of the literature aims to analyze the main factors that have undermined
the credibility of vaccines in the general population, disproved false information and emphasized
the benefits of vaccines over the last 200 years.
Unfortunately, several studies have been carried out without the proper scientific attention.
The most impacting example is the study published by Andrew Wakefield in the Lancet journal
who tried to correlate vaccines with the development of autism: this publication was withdrawn
from the journal a few years after its publication, but the impact of incorrect scientific studies,
fake news, and ambiguous healthcare policies have led to a general adverse opinion about the
effectiveness of vaccines.
The excess of uncontrolled information is a serious concern during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Modern science must tackle this problem with a better willingness to communicate the
clinical studies to those who cannot understand medical information. Nevertheless, a reliable science
must also limit the distribution of studies that do not meet the basic criteria of methodological
rigor and certainty of results in order not to incur confusion in the scientific community.
