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The controversy surrounding the Gardasil vaccine has been around from the moment it was approved for use in young girls. And from the very beginning I have had a problem with Gardasil being referred to as a cervical cancer vaccine - because it's not. I also have a problem with the 'fear mongering' commercials designed to look like public service announcements, and the possibility of making this vaccine (yet another) required by the government.
In the end, I want to research the facts and be the one to make an educated decision about whether or not to vaccinate my daughter for the HPV virus. To be perfectly honest...At this point I don't see any indication that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh the risks. Although the risks are very small, the benefits seem to be even smaller.
But don't take my word for it...Look at some of the most recent facts about Gardasil.
From The New York Times - Study Weighs Risks of Vaccine For Cervical Cancer...
“There are not a huge number of side effects here, that’s fairly certain,” said the editorial writer, Dr. Charlotte Haug, an infectious disease expert from Norway, about the vaccine. “But you are giving this to perfectly healthy young girls, so even a rare thing may be too much of a risk.
“I wouldn’t accept much risk of side effects at all in an 11-year-old girl, because if she gets screened when she’s older, she’ll never get cervical cancer,” Dr. Haug said in an interview. “You don’t have to die from cervical cancer if you have access to health care.”
This is the point I have been trying to make from the beginning of the world-wind push to insist every girl get this vaccine in order to be "one less" person to get cervical cancer.
The FDA and CDC are still claiming that the benefits outweigh the risks of this vaccine. But there is a lot of information for parents to look at before they make the decision to have their child vaccinated.
To start with...When you break the numbers down in this article, it basically says that the small number of "severe" adverse reactions are within acceptable limits...
That was calculated as a rate of 53.9 adverse event reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System for every 100,000 doses of vaccine distributed.
. . .
Of the total number of reports, 6.2 percent, or 772 reports, were considered serious events, including 32 reports of death.
As of June 1, 2009, more than 25 million doses of Gardasil were distributed in the United States. So by the looks of it, 6.2 severe adverse reactions for every 100,000 doses is clearly a very low number. And if this vaccine can save lives by preventing a deadly disease like cervical cancer, the benefits must surely outweigh the risks. Right?
But before you can determine whether the risks of the vaccine are acceptable, we need to take a look at the actual risks of cervical cancer.
This is from the CDC website - Cervical cancer rates in the United States...
For every 100,000 women in the United States - between 3.5 and 12.8 women will develop cervical cancer (that's about 4-13 women for every 100,000 women, depending on what state you live in). And because we have such effective treatment for cervical cancer in the United States, only between 1.6 and 3.7 women in 100,000 will die from cervical cancer.
So...The risk of death from cervical cancer is even less than the incidence of severe adverse reactions to the vaccine. These numbers seem to indicate that the benefit of not getting cervical cancer is even less than the risk of severe adverse reactions to the vaccine.
To help put the numbers into perspective...
Compare that to breast cancer where 123.8 women for every 100,000 will develop breast cancer and 24.5 of 100,000 will die from it.
And compare that to the 1 of every 2.5 women who will die of heart disease (the leading cause of death for women).
From The LA Times - Is HPV Vaccine Worth It?
Taking into account both articles is a related editorial. It states: "Whether a risk is worth taking depends not only on the absolute risk, but on the relationship between the potential risk and the potential benefit. If the potential benefits are substantial, most individuals would be willing to accept the risks. But the net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain. Even if persistently infected with HPV, a
