As a result of decreasing willingness to be vaccinated some diseases, which seemingly had been eradicated, may reappear. One example for this is the increase of measles cases in the United Kingdom since the 1990s after a decrease of immunization rate in response to a subsequently discredited publication suggesting a link between the triple measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. As the incidence of vaccine preventable diseases decreases, vaccine safety dominates personal risk-benefit analysis. To deal with such concerns this review discusses pre- and post-licensing procedures controlling vaccine safety, taking HPV vaccination as well as vaccination against rotavirus as examples.