Under its long-serving editor-in-chief Dr Gregory Poland, the journal Vaccine built a strong reputation as the flagship publication in vaccinology.
It published papers that did not always align with prevailing views on vaccines, provided they met rigorous scientific standards.
A clear example came in 2022, when Vaccine published Fraiman and colleagues’ analysis of serious adverse events in the pivotal Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trials.
The paper concluded that the excess risk of serious adverse events exceeded the reduction in Covid-19 hospitalisations observed in the trials. It sparked international debate and remains widely cited.
This is exactly what scientific journals should do: provide a platform where evidence and competing interpretations can be openly challenged.
Poland himself embodied that approach. After developing persistent and debilitating tinnitus following his own Covid-19 vaccination, he did not become an opponent of vaccination.
Instead, he argued that vaccine injuries warranted serious scientific investigation and that patients reporting adverse events deserved to be heard rather than dismissed. His stance emphasised nuance over ideological certainty.
That standard appears to have shifted under the journal’s new leadership.
In January 2025, virologist Angela Rasmussen was appointed as one of the journal’s three editors-in-chief.
Outside the journal, Rasmussen has cultivated a prominent and highly combative public profile through X and her Substack. Her criticism has extended well beyond scientific disagreement.
After the reconstitution of the US Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) in June 2025, Rasmussen described the committee as a “viper’s nest of anti-vax quacks.”
She accused members of “lying about the evidence,” referred to them as “monsters,” labelled them “conspiracy-addled lunatics,” and described aspects of their work as an “incompetent shitshow.”
These were not private remarks.
They were public statements made by an editor-in-chief of one of the world’s leading vaccine journals about scientists serving on the United States’ principal federal vaccine advisory committee.
Editors are entitled to hold strong opinions.
But scientific journals derive their authority from the expectation that editors will evaluate competing evidence impartially, regardless of their own views. The appearance of impartiality matters as much as the reality.
On their own, Rasmussen’s comments might simply be dismissed as a lack of restraint. But they take on greater significance when viewed alongside the journal’s editorial direction.
In the months that followed, Vaccine published two editorials sharply critical of ACIP, echoing the sentiment of Rasmussen’s public rhetoric.