Immunization and society: A social science agenda for pharmacovigilance

The safety of routinely used vaccines has been monitored for many years, and in many countries. Known as (vaccine) pharmacovigilance, monitoring generally involves gathering reports of side effects from medical professionals and, in some countries, also from the public. How are these reports transformed into regulatory assessments, and how do the assessments affect popular confidence in vaccines? Data showing the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination convinced regulators but left many people unconvinced. Surveys regularly found people giving ‘fear of side effects’ as the cause of their ‘vaccine hesitancy’. The gap between pharmacovigilance and confidence in vaccines represents both a challenge for public health and an opportunity for social science research. Questions about pharmacovigilance allow for exploring issues of trust, power, and risk perception. Not least because of widespread vaccine-related misinformation, and the distinct possibility of a future pandemic, pharmacovigilance merits a place in the ‘biomedicine and society’ agenda.