to be worried about this consent form?

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

DD (12) has brought home the NHS Consent form for the HPV Immunisation for Year 8s.

We have decided, in a discussion involving me, DD and DH, that we do not want her to have the vaccine.

However, I am upset that the form says : (quote) Please note that while your consent is important, if you refuse consent the vaccination may still be given

It also says, 'Reason consent refused (PTO for additional space to give us your reason for your decision' - do I really have to give details?

AIBU to feel concerned?

"Do you really think that the majority of parents who have declined vaccines for their DC have done so on the basis of so little research, such flimsy opinion that they would be swayed by the threat of the withdrawal of a few pounds and a third rate state education? "

Yes.

Well I'm not sure about the withdrawal of state benefits or education but they'll have certainly based their decision on ignorance.

Harper, of course, denies the remarks and says the report is fabricated. You can see the nutcase cluster here. You can read the saga here. You can't read the article in the Sunday Express, because it's been removed pending a Press Council investigation.

From Goldacre:

I will explain Harper's position in her own words. They are unambiguous: "I did not say that Cervarix was as deadly as cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix could be riskier or more deadly than cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix was controversial, I stated that Cervarix is not a 'controversial drug'. I did not 'hit out' ? I was contacted by the press for facts. And this was not an exclusive interview."

Harper did not "develop Cervarix" but she did work on some important trials of Gardasil and also Cervarix. "Gardasil is not a 'sister vaccine' as the Express said, it is a different compound. I do not know of the side effects of Cervarix as it is not available in the US."

She did not say that Cervarix was being overmarketed. "I did say that Merck was egregiously overmarketing Gardasil in the US ? but Gardasil and Cervarix are not the same vaccines."

Here is the tragedy. In a clear example of how academics are often independent-minded about the interventions they work on, Harper is a critic of Gardasil, or more specifically of how it is marketed. Briefly, her view is that we do not yet know how long the protection from these vaccines will last, and this will affect the cost-benefit decisions.

She is concerned that aggressive advertising aimed directly at the public ? which is not permitted in Europe ? may lead people to falsely believe they are invincible to HPV (human papilloma viruses, some types of which can increase the risk of developing cervical cancer), and so neglect other precautions. She also suspects from modelling data that for the specific and restricted group ofwomen who are punctilious about attending every single one of their cervical cancer screening appointments, vaccination may have little impact on their risk of death from cancer; but even they will benefit from the reduction in reproductive problems caused by treating pre-cancerous changes in cervical cells.

The article has now gone from the Express website, and Harper has complained to the Press Complaints Commission. "I fully support the HPV vaccines," she says. "I believe that in general they are safe in most women. I told the Express all of this."

Her criticisms of aspects of cervical cancer vaccination are nuanced and valuable, but do not fit the black and white hysteria of the British media. A public discussion about the merits of different treatment options would be nice. Sadly, this is not currently possible.

"the same with half of GPs"

Do you actually read the articles you link to?

"A poll of doctors for Pulse magazine found that 49 per cent would reject the vaccine with 9 per cent undecided.

Sounds convincing, yes? Except, and I'll highlight the critical point:

"The Pulse survey questioned 15 doctors"

oh good old Goldacre, the Guardian's guru, he always turns up and holds the line. The Daily Mail don't need a guru like him to convince their readers.

Yes if I remember rightly that article was pulled from the Express, because they mentioned Cervarix, and they were using some of her statements regarding Gardasil.

No I didn't have time to read the second one. I took the headline on trust. Will have to read them more carefully.

"The Daily Mail don't need a guru like him to convince their readers."

Probably because the average Daily Mail reader has a shoe size and and IQ that are indistinguishable...

"No I didn't have time to read the second one. I took the headline on trust."

So you trust the headlines in the Daily Mail, but are a finely honed sceptic for medical statistics? How odd.

"Probably because the average Daily Mail reader has a shoe size and and IQ that are indistinguishable..."

I've never heard that one about Mail readers, but I've often heard it said about Guardian writers.

Yes we know you don't like Goldacre. It still refutes the conclusions you drew from the article you linked too.

15 hahahahahahahahahaha!

Rather arrogant looktowindward. The vast majority of people I know who have rejected vaccination have done so for younger children after problems with their older siblings. In about 50% of cases their doctors have agreed that 'vaccinations' are likely to have played a role. I suspect tge other 50% might have liked the possibility to have been considered rather than rejected without investigation.

There's nothing like watching your child lose speech and other skills to make you consider your choices. I suspect those friends of mine who have ended up with children in hdu have been through similar questions

"finely honed medical statistics"
do you mean the predictions of how many would die from swine flu as given by the ex-Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.

Claig - I think you might find there was a probability attached to those predictions.

He said it was a worst case - the advice he received will have been 95% chance of x cases, 70% chance of y cases, 5% chance of z cases and he quoted the outlier.

We were lucky, and any misleading impression was down to the media presentaion rather than the stats.

This is what they said
"Current planning assumptions involve a range of anticipated casualty rates. It is expected that as many as 60% of the population will eventually become infected, but only around 30% will fall ill and experience significant symptoms. That would produce 65,000 deaths if the mortality rate was as high as 0.35%, and 19,000 deaths if it was a rate of 0.1%."

But there is no point arguing about it. Some of us have doubts over their safety and the majority think the risk is minimal.

I realise brutal misquoting is the stock in trade of the charlatans in the anti-vax movement, and it probably works for the semi-educated. But does someone who edits "finely honed sceptic for medical statistic" into "finely honed medical statistics", and puts it in quote marks, really think that what they're doing is remotely honest?

But TCNY is right: there were error bars on those predictions. The Mail, et al, which appears to be the limit of your reading, took the worst case scenarios and made out that they were the central estimate.

I understand that Pixie, I was giving an example to show why I have less faith in medical statistics than tokyo does.

But you cite an n=15 poll without reservation, because it was in the Daily Mail? Do they allow you sharp cutlery?

saintlydamemrsturnip - are you a member of support groups/activist groups etc. I don't want to disparage or minimise your experience, just to point out that their may be a natural selection bias in your group of friends that gives you a greater personal experience of this than most people, which will naturally skew your perceptions.

None of which means these things shouldn't be investigated of course.

only plastic cutlery, unfortunately

Pixie, forgive me, I should have put .... in the middle , or left the quotes out. I wanted to show that medical statistics can be wrong.