OPINION: What the vaccine debate gets right, and wrong, about medical research
Originally published by Citizen Digital — Read the original article →
By Dr. David Ouma
This week, social media has been awash
with commentaries on vaccines. The debate began after a social media user
claimed that women were increasingly being diagnosed with endometriosis as a
consequence of vaccination. What followed was an important but polarised debate
about vaccine safety and the ethical boundaries of clinical research,
particularly in African populations.
To put this debate into perspective, we
need to understand how researchers establish whether an exposure is responsible
for a health outcome. An event occurring after another does not, by itself,
establish a relationship. Researchers look for consistent patterns across
populations while accounting for confounding factors. These are other
characteristics that may influence both the exposure and the outcome.
