I have to do a presentation on vaccine trials in my Interventional Trial Design class. I decided to talk a little bit about the history of vaccine trials or the lack of it thereof. However, my biggest problem is finding literature on the history of vaccine trials. There is much written about polio, HIV, smallpox but nothing about Rabies, Diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, cholera..absolutely nothing. I have spent over five hours trying to find some sort of primary data on the subject. I wonder why DPT is so unglamorous compared to other vaccines. Its a bit like working on HIV or malaria vaccines in science compared to fialriasis or leprosy vaccines. Somethings are catchy, get funded and grab headlines, whereas almost 60% of good science goes under the radar. Its quite depressing. I remember HIV basic science getting lots of news in Oxford but cannot remember the last time anyone wrote a lot about developing BACS or sequenom.

Its a strange field – vaccines. You have a lot of literature on basic science and development and you have tons of literature on vaccine safety, policy and ethics. Yet, there is very little general literature on vaccine trials themselves. How to conduct a good trial, important issues to address, stuff like that is never addressed. I wonder if its because it is pretty obvious to everyone.

In cases you are interested,the best sources for the history of medicine are either the Wellcome Trust Library or the National Library of Medicine history of medicine archives. There are other specialised websites like the James Lind library covering the history of clinical trials or the Edward Jenner Museum website.