Fast forward to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-10. It's too early to carry out the same type of analysis that was done for SARS by Xing et al., but a paper we published in early April indicates that many of the same problems remain. The paper, ''Association between the 2008-09 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine and Pandemic H1N1 Illness during Spring-Summer 2009: Four Observational Studies from Canada'' [2] reports potentially worrying findings about the impact of seasonal flu vaccination on illness from H1N1. We're the first to admit we were not quick-we received the paper on 2 November 2009, accepted it on 1 March 2010, and published it on 6 April 2010. It's quite possible that this delay could have exacerbated the problem of making decisions about vaccination for the public health physicians and policymakers who had heard informally about some of the results and wondered if they should be changing course. At the same time, the need for careful review of these controversial data meant that we could not rush the review process. In addition, as the lead author, Danuta Skowronski, herself indicated, prior rejection from another journal added further to the delay in publication [3] .