ABSTRACT
THE SAFETY OF VACCINE ADJUVANTS While complete safety for any medical intervention is impossible, with almost 100 years of accumulated data involving many billions of doses, it is clear that vaccines, including adjuvants, have an excellent safety profile. Recently the safety of longestablished vaccine adjuvants based on insoluble aluminum salts (alum) was readdressed (1). The conclusion was that alum was safe and effective, although local reactions can be common. However, since vaccines are administered to hundreds of millions of individuals on an annual basis, the safety hurdles applied to new vaccines and new vaccine adjuvant technologies will be high, with rigorous evaluation the established practice. It is in this very conservative context that the merits and advantages of novel adjuvants need to be considered.
