by Judy Brown

Many health care companies and nearly all pharmaceutical companies are for-profit industries. Their effects on everyday people can be intense, making it hard to trust what they tell us. Their corporate agendas are often focused on shareholders, rather than on what is best for the patient. (I need not recount how the Sackler family made billions on opioids while countless families lost loved ones from addiction, do I?)

So, can we address our legitimate concerns in order to make decisions about vaccines? One way is to do our own research, but listening to podcasters, news reports, and public figures who profit from vaccines is not the answer. Instead, reading actual scientific studies is how to do our own research. We can also ask spokespeople to cite research they used to come to their conclusions.

There are two things about science. One, scientists are human, which means the field of science has foibles because humans have foibles. Two, science is not about uncovering ironclad, immutable facts. The scientific method is about making an educated guess and designing experiments that can prove or disprove that hypothesis. So, scientific understanding is a constantly evolving understanding that can change over time. This makes decisions about something complicated, like vaccines, difficult. It is also why it is important to use only the best scientific studies (and not just one!) from unbiased data that are peer-reviewed. This is in stark contrast to what podcasters and politicians feed us.

How do you know what research to look at? First, go to reputable journals. Some of the best ones are well-known: Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science. Then look at an overview of the data: How many subjects were in the study? What are the characteristics of the subjects? (College students are easily roped into studies, but don’t often share characteristics with most of us. Also, for years, women weren’t included in studies because researchers didn’t know how to factor “menstrual cycles” into the data.) What categories of data are being collected? Do the categories reflect a big picture? Would it be necessary to know family size, age, gender, Dorito consumption? All kinds of things can be left out of the data that must be included. But, in science, even a flawed study can be useful in setting the direction for new experiments. Science isn’t about “right or wrong,” but can be, “Okay, what did I learn from that experiment, and what more do I need to find out to get the information I need?”

Also, look for review articles in good journals that get scientists from unrelated labs to read articles before they are published, find flaws, and get study authors to address those flaws. Good reviews list the studies, include the number of subjects, directions of inquiry, results, and contrasting studies. For example, I looked at a review article in the Cochran Database of Systemic Reviews, which is the leading database for systematic reviews in health care, and owned by a global independent network of researchers, professionals, patients, carers, and people interested in health. They brought together a lot of experiments about vaccines. The numbers of subjects were in the thousands, which is great. Also, contradictory results could be explained in the context of looking at the questions from lots of angles.

Another thing to do in assessing if a study is valid, is asking where the research group got its funding. (If a pharmaceutical corporation is funding the research, the researcher might have a reason to interpret the results in such a way that the pharmaceutical corporation would find favorable, so that the lab would continue to get funding).

Using validated information is essential when answering questions and making decisions for ourselves and loved ones. In this time of division and misinformation, relying on dispassionate data is calming. It helps us make the best choices we can during difficult times.

Judy Brown has a master’s in human genetics from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an MSW from State University of New York School of Social Work.