Cervical cancer vaccine - Japan no longer recommends because of side effects concern

[Crumbledwalnuts]

there are quite a lot of different places this story is written, this is one of them

It's not being withdrawn but the government isn't recommending it any more. At least for now, while it investigates.

Yes I was thank you Saintly and thanks for earlier words of support on the thread (ps I am meh about breast screening but very keen on cervical - I think because I don't believe the screening process can actually trigger cancerous changes).

Yes so I got it wrong about public policy. It doesn't make any difference to the fact that the Japanese government is so concerned about the safety of this vaccine that it's withdrawing it's recommendation. I think that's a pretty serious sign.

pre=cancerous changes, I guess I should say there

I do wonder about the age having being to 25, I had to have a colposcopy to remove cells at 19

What women who don't have that conversation??

Women don't tend to diagnose themselves with cervical cancer anyway, and it's not contagious so a vaccine isn't going to encourage risky behaviour of hanging out with people who have it.
Are you suggesting that people who have worrying symptoms won't go to their doctor because of the jab? I don't think so, as worrying symptoms can be many things, cervical cancer isn't the only concern.

Well plenty of people think a rash that starts behind the ears spreads across the face and downwards accompanied by a cough and temp couldn't possibly be measles if they've had MMR (as I said earlier had that experience myself with OOH). Or they think a cough that goes on forever and leads to episodes of retching couldn't possibly be whooping cough if they've had pertussis jab. And I certainly have experience of someone who thought her child's rash couldn't be rubella (and that is perhaps particularly worrying as with rubella you're not often ill enough yourself to bother with a doctor, albeit see above about doctors beliefs). So yes I do think it's entirely possibly someone will discount symptoms (especially embarrassing ones) if they believe that they couldn't possibly have cancer.

I think childhood diseases are a different kettle of fish to cancer.

People don't usually diagnose themselves with cancer, that tends to need rather more sophisticated tests than looking at a rash.

Lots of people ignore worrying symptoms or think they have cancer when they don't. I don't think a jab will change anything there.

Thanks for the bumps noble. I think your view is dangerously complacent tbh.

So you would rather that girls weren't told the purpose of the jab was to provide protection against the main cause of cervical cancer?

Bumping your thread where you call it the cervical cancer vaccine? Surely you would rather that dangerous thread title dropped off the bottom of the list, no? Perhaps you could ask MNHQ to delete it, wouldn't want to get dangerously complacent.

Thanks for the bump. What do you think of Japan's decision not to recommend this vaccine any more because of concern about side effects?

Thanks for reminding me, I read this earlier:

"So, the health ministry is going to withhold recommendation of the HPV vaccination because they notice 43 cases for which they couldn?t establish a causal relationship to the vaccine. In other words, 0.0013% of cases, a number so small that it?s pretty close to impossible to affix any statistical significance to it. In fact, random background ?noise? (that is that some whole body pain could be expected in any random sampling of vaccinated or unvaccinated individuals) of this type of observation is as plausible as correlation (let alone causation) to the vaccine. In fact, the Health Ministry failed to provide us with data concerning the level of these side effects in the general population. Nor how soon after vaccination. Nor anything potentially useful in a scientific analysis.

What?s worse is that, according to the same article, about 2700 women in Japan die every year from HPV related cancers. So, because of complaints from the antivaccination lunatics in Japan (didn?t know they had any, but I shouldn?t be surprised), and bad statistics (43 potential cases of ?body pain? out of 3,280,000 vaccinations), the Health Ministry stops recommending the vaccine. Exactly what were these people thinking?

Finally, let?s be clear here. The vaccine hasn?t been pulled from the market nor has it been outlawed; teenagers can still get the vaccine. And this was a very unusual move, since only 3 years ago, Japan?s parliament added the HPV vaccine to the mandatory schedule. Hopefully, this committee will look at the numbers from a statistical and scientific point of view and fix this stupidity.

By the way, the World Health Organization still recommends the HPV vaccine. Because the HPV vaccine saves lives by preventing future cervical cancers."

www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/japan-health-ministry-pulls-recommendation-hpv-vaccination/

Also, this recent press release from the USA

"A new study looking at the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in girls and women before and after the introduction of the HPV vaccine shows a significant reduction in vaccine-type HPV in U.S. teens. The study, published in [the June issue of] The Journal of Infectious Diseases reveals that since the vaccine was introduced in 2006, vaccine-type HPV prevalence decreased 56 percent among female teenagers 14-19 years of age.
About 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20s, are infected with HPV. Each year, about 14 million people become newly infected.
?This report shows that HPV vaccine works well, and the report should be a wake-up call to our nation to protect the next generation by increasing HPV vaccination rates,? said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. ?Unfortunately only one third of girls aged 13-17 have been fully vaccinated with HPV vaccine. Countries such as Rwanda have vaccinated more than 80 percent of their teen girls. Our low vaccination rates represent 50,000 preventable tragedies ? 50,000 girls alive today will develop cervical cancer over their lifetime that would have been prevented if we reach 80 percent vaccination rates. For every year we delay in doing so, another 4,400 girls will develop cervical cancer in their lifetimes.?"

www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/p0619-hpv-vaccinations.html

Nearly two thousand serious side effects reported - the task force considered 43. And decided there was sufficient evidence of a link that further inquiries are needed - and more than that, sufficient evidence of a link for the government to withdraw its recommendation - a rare move. I don't know what your basing your "background noise" on - is it the "background noise" used in cervical cancer safety studies?
And by the way, those anti-vaccination lunatics are in general mothers who had their daughters vaccinated. But as soon as they find something goes wrong, people aren't saying sorry, thanks for your sacrifice, well done for your social responsibility, we'll now repay that with some social responsibility of our own. Suddenly they're "anti-vaccination lunatics". How very revealing.

They don't understand the US figures. They don't understand this drop - it shouldn't be this big. Maybe people are taking more care with their sexual activity or having less. Certainly the authorities are puzzled by those figures from the US.
However someone who calls distressed, vaccinating mothers as "anti-vaccination lunatics" will have their own special take on that.

The CDC's been pulled up by government inspectors in recent years for failing to identify and police financial conflicts of interest.

Nearly two thousand serious side effects reported

Nope, although it's interesting that you read it that way. Nearly two thousand possible side effects, most not serious and as yet they cannot be shown to have been caused by the vaccine.

By the way, it's not 'my' background noise, I thought it was fairly clear from my post that I didn't write it.

Maybe people are taking more care with their sexual activity or having less.

Or maybe the vaccine is even more effective than thought. Funny how you missed out that explanation.

So are you offering a background noise statistic? If so, is it from the safety studies? Do you know?
Still calling distressed vaccinating mothers "anti-vaccination lunatics"? Stand by that?

More effective? You mean it actually stops more strains of HPV than it was designed to?

"Mika Matsufuji, 46, who represents an association of cervical cancer vaccination victims? parents, said the health panel?s decision was a ?big step forward.? Her daughter, who was vaccinated with Cervarix in 2011, lost the ability to walk and is now in a wheelchair, she said."

Do you mean this particular anti-vaccination lunatic?

I didn't call any vaccinating mothers anti-vaccination lunatics.

You do realise what quote marks are for, right? To report what someone else said?

If you read the article I linked to, you would actually find out how it could be more effective than thought.

"So, because of complaints from the antivaccination lunatics in Japan (didn?t know they had any, but I shouldn?t be surprised),"

Enjoy the quote marks

The mothers were complaining. These are the people you call anti-vaccination lunatics.

Are you offering a background noise statistic? Are you comparing the incidence of these reported side effects with an actual statistic or just generally referring to background noise?

I copied and pasted a blog post where someone else wrote that line.

If you object to it, you really rather should take it up with them, because they aren't my words

Good grief.

I should think then that they are using the background noise from the safety studies. What else would they use? Aren't you interested? It's your quote.

Er, they explained what they meant by background noise. It's in the brackets following the words 'background noise'.