Vaccine safety.

The purpose of this article is to offer evidence that vaccine safety is taken very seriously and various examples to support this premise are described. The article covers adverse event reporting following vaccination, the difference between events which occur after vaccination and events which are caused by vaccination, the comprehensive safety monitoring required when vaccines are first introduced, international vaccine withdrawals because of safety concerns and some vaccine changes in New Zealand where safety was an important consideration. Finally, recent developments in vaccine safety monitoring are outlined. It is hoped that this will be a useful resource for those involved in the complex issue of counteracting vaccine hesitancy.