Sir, – Kathy Sheridan describes vaccine sceptics as having “fringe beliefs” (“Spare a thought for families of Covid conspiracy theorists”, Opinion, September 2nd). Not so. When one considers the following quotes from present and former editors of prestigious medical journals, then one cannot consider vaccine scepticism as being a fringe belief. Dr Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine in The New York Review of Books, January 15th, 2009: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet since 1995, in The Lancet on April 11th, 2015: “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” Scepticism is, arguably, more important now than ever. – Yours, etc, TOM KELLY,Broadstone,Dublin 7.