HPV vaccine uncertainties

[Vaccidilemma]

My daughter (12) has been offered the vaccine at school in the coming weeks.

I have always been of the view that she should take the vaccine, she has had all of her childhood vaccines and I’ve seen evidence of significantly lower rates of cancer in younger 20-30 year olds.

Right so my issue now is that my partner is of the opposing view that he is concerned about the adverse effects and has been led to believe that it will lead to some quite nasty long term irreversible issues. I’ve had a look online and I’m also seeing anecdotal evidence of these issues so I’m also now uncertain. I realise that we are only going to hear about the people who have had problems and that these are more vocal, especially within the anti vax community.

I want to protect her against this horrible disease but what if she is one of the few who do experience problems?

has anyone delayed it for similar reasons?

has anyone paid privately when they are no longer eligible to receive it on the NHS? If so, how much and did you have any obstacles in being able to get it?

Does anyone regret their decision either way?

AiBU to ask?

thank you

I am not anti-vax but I did struggle with this one. There is a gentleman near us who's daughter has a chronic fatigue illness that started just after this vaccine. He is very intelligent, well respected, owns a multi million pound business and is absolutely convinced the vaccine caused the life changing illness.

I did loads of research and in the end decided to let her get it. All vaccines carry risks and I felt the benefits outweighed the risks.

However, my DS was offered it last year and he didnt get it. Again from carrying out research, there were far less benefits to him (rare penile cancer that is very treatable). I got a call from the health service trying to convince me to change my mind and warning me of the cost of doing it privately.
It isn't routinely offered to boys in most countries in my understanding.

"It's hard" seems like a major overstatement based on knowing ONE person who had adverse effects. Normalising vaccine hesitation is a really unhelpful thing to do.

My understanding is that it works better the younger you have it so I don't really see the point in delaying it. I paid privately for my two boys to get it - as only girls were eligible then. It was about £800 I think.

Get the vaccine done

Hpv from oral sex is linked to an absolutely huge increase in oral cancers in men.

@Vaccidilemma you can find ‘evidence’ for literally any old rubbish on the internet. The world is flat, the king is a lizard and Finland doesn’t exist!

Ignore it and have your daughter vaccinated so she is protected from cancer.

For people with sons it also protects against a form of mouth and throat cancer - it also means you are protecting their future partners. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/hpv_oropharyngeal.htm#:~:text=HPV%20can%20infect%20the%20mouth,cancers%20in%20the%20United%20States.

99% of the "research" you do is literal bullshit.

The only thing I would say to op is that if you don't want to make the decision for her (although she can do that herself as well at 12) then she could wait til say 16 or 18 and can still get it done on the nhs at an age where it's really her adult informed choice.

As boys are now also vaccinated, if she had sex before then, which she might not, the risks of contracting hpv might be lower than in the past.

It's a really safe vaccine though - only brings benefits really. I am another one who paid £££ to get my sons vaccinated

In my fifties, so too old to have had the vaccine. Suffered from HPV related cancer that was only picked up at stage 3 so horrified to think there is a preventative for HPV cancer out there that people would consider not taking up on behalf of their children.

Not all HPV cancers are screened for or easily detected.

Cervical cancer is one of very few that the WHO have said can be completely eradicated if enough vaccine take up in both sexes happens.
The cancers caused by HPV in males are less common, but just as possible to eradicate.
No medical evidence ever found to link the HPV vaccine to G-B syndrome which is the most commonly cited (but research refuted) side effects.

A vaccine that is 95% successful with no notable side effects in the literature yet at least 3 people on a random thread in a little corner of the internet claim to "have a mate who..."

Or, bollocks, as we like to say.

OP- stop hiding behind your anti-vax namechange and protect your daughter. If she exists.

As PP have mentioned, there are very aggressive head and neck cancers associated with HPV. I paid for my son to have it as he wasn't eligible at the time. I've seen the images of these cancers and didn't want to put him at risk.

I paid privately for it in my late 20s (when I had had v few sexual partners due to one very LTR) and have had negaitive smear tests since. I have no regrets, other than I didn't get it paid for by nhs! There were no side effects that I remember.

Remember, as soon as she has sexual contact she could be exposed to the virus so it is much better to do it at her age. The only was to stay safe is to only ever have sex with someone who has only ever had sexual contact with you which, even in very religious communities, is very rare. She probably has her own view on the vaccine too!

I campaigned for the vaccine as had cervical cancer and lost my fertility. The treatment was grim. I still have after effects 17 years on. I also lost some very dear friends to it so when my daughter (adopted) was offered the vaccine she had it.

A couple of things to note, HPV is not just spread by intercourse, it's skin to skin so easily spread by oral sex, sexual touch etc. It can also lie dormant for years (this happened to me) so it's better to have the vaccine as early as possible, before teens start experimenting. Another reason for boys as well as girls to have the vaccine (Michael Douglas is a famous example).

It doesn't protect against all strains of HPV or all types of cervical cancer but it still reduces the probability. The probability of having vaccine side effects is much lower than getting cervical cancer or pre cancer.

The radio 4 programme More or Less had an article about oral and throat cancers last week, during which the HPV vaccine was discussed, since it is now believed the same virus can cause both oral and cervical cancers. I think it will still be available on a catch up. The stats are interesting, but it seems as though the vaccine has been amazingly effective re cervical cancer, and will probably do the same for oral cancers, which have statistically been on the increase . However , because they are slow to appear the results won’t appear as quickly as the cervical cancer results, but are expected to have the same very positive outcomes. To protect your daughter against two very distressing cancers with one safe vaccine seems to be a win to me.

I wonder if your partner would be as reluctant to allow his son to have the HPV vaccine to protect him against possible future illness.

Oysterbabe · Today 07:45
Anti vaxxers are full of shit. Do your job as a parent and protect your child from cancer”

THIS.

If you have a son, they should have it too.

It had just started to be rolled out when DD was offered it so I was worried about unknown side effects and she didn't have it. I've kept an eye on the research and it all seemed positive and effective.

When DS was due it, he had it and the school nurse team gave it to DD at the same time (just before 18).

Is it true that it only lasts for 7 years and then, if exposed to the virus there is no protection in the body?

Or is that nonsense? Am behind vaccines just remember reading this and wondering why there wasn’t a program of boosters, etc if true?

No it's not true.

I think when it originally came out, which is quite a long time ago now, they weren't sure how long protection would last so there was talk of a booster after say 10 years.

But it's been running for almost 20 years now and no longer term booster required as yet.

In fact, the vaccine has proved very effective with fewer doses - apparently will soon be a one dose shot for kids.And protecting against more and more strains.

It sounds like your friend’s daughter was very, very unlucky however that doesn’t necessarily mean that the vaccine ‘isn’t that good’.

No vaccine is 100% effective but the HPV vaccine is one of the more effective vaccines, especially in young people who haven’t previously been exposed to the types of HPV being vaccinated against (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8706722/)

Also, whilst most cervical cancers are caused by HPV not all are (‘In general, HPV is thought to be responsible for more than 90% of anal and cervical cancers, about 70% of vaginal and vulvar cancers, and more than 60% of penile cancers’- from the CDC website).
She might have just been incredibly unlucky and got one of the types of cancer that isn’t caused by HPV. Or of course she could have got HPV before being vaccinated which would reduce the efficacy.

In relation to side effects and long term complications the common side effects are mild and only last a few hours (sore arm etc). Serious or long term side effects are incredibly rare (Reports of serious health issues after HPV vaccination were consistently rare—around 1.8 per 100,000 HPV vaccine doses, or 0.0018%- https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2021/hpv-vaccine-parents-safety-concerns). Much lower than the rates of cervical cancer in the unvaccinated population.

Thank you @ArcticSkewer

I remember there was a dr in Dublin who paid out of his own pocket for a school to have the vaccine when it first came out and I read up on the story online.

Underneath it was an article from ‘a US specialist’ on how the vaccine left those exposed after 7 years. I couldn’t find anymore info on it and wondered why that hadn’t been publicly quashed if it was appearing online but it was a US site

Have you heard of confirmation bias ?
Confirmation bias is the reason why anecdotal evidence of vaccine side effects is unhelpful.
Humans are hardwired to look for cause and effect relationships. So when you have a vaccine, and you feel somehow different/experience symptoms afterwards (particularly in a negative way), you’re likely to attribute that to the vaccine. Especially if you’re worried about side effects. But not all of those symptoms people experience will be caused by the vaccine. Sometimes it will just be a coincidence.
To give you an example : When I had one dose of the covid vaccine, I had a fever that night, which I attributed to the vaccine. But, I then went on to develop hand foot and mouth (along with my toddler). So the fever probably had nothing to do with the vaccine.
This is why pharma companies and the NHS monitor vaccine side effects by creating a database of reported symptoms following vaccination, which is then compared to the baseline rates of those symptoms in a similar population - so if X percent of girls report migraine symptoms after the HPV job, but it’s the same frequency of migraines among adolescent girls that gets reported all the time (not just after a vaccine) then that probably isn’t a side effect of the vaccine. Or if 2% of girls report a fever the day after having the vaccine, and the baseline rate for fever in that group is 1% chance per day (so about 3 nights a year you spike a fever), then there is a 1% chance the vaccine will cause a fever, not a 2% chance. I made up these stats but you get the idea.
Stop reading anecdotes and go and find the actual data. Or trust that the NHS has done these calculations already and determined the HPV vaccine is a really good thing for your daughter to have.

I had the same concerns OP and didn’t give it to my older daughter, thinking that she could get it when she was 18. However, it was then very hard to actually get the GP to do it later, they refused initially. She did eventually get it done and had to have three injections. With my younger one I just had it done at the normal time at school, no problems at all.
I think it’s very easy to caught up with the fear-mongering and I regret going down the road of google.

saltysquid · Today 10:01
I had the same concerns OP and didn’t give it to my older daughter, thinking that she could get it when she was 18. However, it was then very hard to actually get the GP to do it later, they refused initially. She did eventually get it done and had to have three injections. With my younger one I just had it done at the normal time at school, no problems at all.

“I think it’s very easy to caught up with the fear-mongering and I regret going down the road of google.”

yes, this. 18 is often too late. Our eldest was in the first cohort to receive it and we were delighted (my mother having had cervical cancer).

Another person here who absolutely would say go for the vaccine….down to both its high effectiveness and low side effect/risk profile. ( I didn’t choose the Covid vaccine for my child but have got every other childhood vaccine so I’m not a vaccinate at all costs person). My youngest ever hospice patient died from cervical cancer so if you are persuaded by anecdotal evidence please accept this one!!!! And women with sons please get your sons jabbed ,for their own good as well as their partners.