Why comparisons between the corona vaccine and thalidomide do not hold: a historical take on public health scandals and the regulation of drug safety in Europe

As tests for several vaccines against the corona virus enter their final stages, sceptics raise concerns about the vaccine’s safety. They argue that the unprecedented speed with which the vaccines have been developed and the commercial interests that are at stake may come with risks to public health. In this context, one historical scandal continues to impact public trust in the safety of medicines: the thalidomide scandal of the 1950s and 1960s. As Koen van Zon shows in this blog, however, the fact that we keep coming back to this scandal of more than half a century back shows that the regulation of drug safety has profoundly changed since.