HPV gardasil

[Mumoftwodaughters]

My daughter's school are vaccinating for HPV next week, but I am not sure whether to go ahead. I am alarmed having read the side effects & personal experience comments at the bottom of the HPV side effects page on the NHS website:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pages/hpv-vaccine-cervarix-gardasil-side-effects.aspx
I quote: 13yr old girl in ‘waking’ coma since her 3rd HPV.
In Japan 1928 side effects reported & the Health Ministry has withdrawn its recommendation of the use of HPV vaccine.
Polysorbate 80 - said to be linked to infertility in mice
May increase risk of cancer: (1) Gardasil not tested for cancer causing properties/carcinogenicity; (2) due to replacement; (3) due to presence of recombinant HPV DNA.; 1287 serious side effects reported to June 2013;
HPV: www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pages/hpv-human-papillomavirus-vaccine.aspx Cancer Research apparently have no figures on the instance of HPV strains 16 & 18 related to cancer to 31 December 2012.

To a parent this all looks quite alarming and at the moment I shall not be going ahead, but does anyone have any views? Incidentally, my daughter has been through anti-candida process and is now wheat free, having suffered from perioral dermatitis, so I imagine she is considered to have had a lowered immunity (but no longer). Not sure if this makes her more at risk or not. I have sought advice in writing of her GP/homeopath who has treated her for the past 4 years.

arkestra, I don't think the pharma companies are deliberately harming children for financial gain. However, they are a business and they expect to make a profit, just like any other business. I think problems are swept under the carpet and ignored for as long as possible but that probably applies to other medicines too , not just vaccines, and indeed applies to products made by other companies that are nothing to do with vaccines.

We felt strongly enough about the Gardasil vaccine that we paid a lot of money for our SONS to have it. If we had daughters, we would have paid for them to have it too (it never should have been the other vaccine that was offered, why protect against the 2 main strains when you can protect against the 4 main strains?).

More experts are calling for boys to be offered it on the nhs, hpv causes many cancer types, not just cervical. Of particular concern is the huge recent rise in head and neck cancers, amongst young adults, and as a medical family, that made the decision to vaccinate the boys an easy one, despite the cost.

Mumoftwo, any exchange of body fluids from an infected individual can infect someone else. Common sites for hpv to infect, for obvious reasons, are the female genital tract, the head of the penis, the anus and the mouth/throat... No coincidence that these are also the most common sites for cancers to arise from hpv,

RawCoconutMacaroon, I agree that gardasil would have been a better choice. I still wouldn't want it for a 13 year old though.

Although I don't dispute your figures about cancers of the head and neck among young adults and cancers ofth penis and anus being on the rise, how common really are they , and particularly in a 13 year old?

This vaccine was introduced and marketed to protect against the virus that leads to cervical cancer. The cynical side of me thinks that the dangers of these other cancers are being exagerated to promote the use of the vaccine, particularly in boys.

I agree there may be a higher rsk among gay people but how do I know that my children will be gay and if they are why can't they then get the vaccine themselves.

You are misunderstanding how the cancer develops. You don't catch hpv and then get cancer right away. Most likely (in an unvaccinated person), they catch one (or more) of the hpv strains, and the immune system clears the infection (maybe over months, maybe over years. If the infection is not cleared, eventually that (area of infected tissue) can turn cancerous.

The reason to vaccinate BEFORE a young person is sexually active, is to prevent those infections which may give rise to cancer when that person is 25, 35, or whatever age that particular cancer develops.

If you vaccinate someone at age 16 or 18, there is a fairly high chance they will already have caught hpv (and remember you don't actually have to have sex to catch it.

And actually, the dangers of other cancers (head and neck etc) caused by hpv have been played down IMO because the gov doesn't want to pay to have boys protected as well. They think it is sufficient that boys will have a reduced risk if enough girls get vaccinated.

My DD will have the vaccination but not at twelve I'd rather wait and she have the protection when she needs it

Thanks RawCoconutMacaroon but I am well aware of how it works and I still will not consent. At 16 they can choose for themselves. The benefits are too far into the future for me to risk a new vaccine, with no long term studies.

"Pap smears can only detect the cancer when it has started. They are not preventative."

Wrong. Smears detect pre-cancerous cells, often many years before they become cancer.

My DD's had her second jab last week and suffered some side effects: for three days she had a headache and mostly slept. She was sleeping all day and all night, only getting up once in a while to eat and drink something. I was getting worried as sleeping didn't seem to relieve her tiredness. She got up on the fourth day with no headache and feeling mostly fine.

According to the NHS website, headaches and fatique are known side effects of Gardasil, but there is no indication of how long this could be going on for, which was another reason I was getting worried.

I thought I'd post this in case another girl suffers same side-effects. Sorry if this is the wrong thread for this, but it's the most recent one about Gardasil!

Thank you for sharing this Greenmouse. I'm glad your daughter's short term side effects have diminished now.

I have declined for my dd with the understanding that if she chooses to have the vaccination at a later date she can of course do so. I wanted to have longer to research the vaccination, as I was alarmed by mention of side effects and that Japan no longer routine vaccinate.

As a scientist who used to work in a lab evaluating these vaccines I can tell you that both vaccines (Gardasil and Cervarix) protect against the majority of different HPV strains. Usually viral strains don't differ THAT much so you can raise a vaccine against 1 and obtain cross protection against many.

... Also - early screening does protect against 'cancer' but sometimes you have to have the early stages of the disease cut out your cervix before the 'neoplastic' cells start becoming invasive.

Just thought I'd mention it.

I had a wee body recently and will be vaccinating him when he hits his teens. HPV has also been implicated in other cancers as well.

Rawcoconut, 2 of the strains are responsible for genital warts - not cervical cancer.

I haven't seen that publicised anywhere fatandlumpy. All the literature seems to make it very clear that both vaccines offer protection against the 2 strains that can cause around 70% of cervical cancer cases(not that they all progress to that stage!) and that Gardasil protects against another 2 strains that are responsible for genital warts. It wouldn't explain why people in PH are concerned about the increase in other strains of HPV that can also cause cancer.

In my view the thing in common with this and other vaccine-related threads is that vaccines definitely benefit POPULATIONS not necessarily INDIVIDUALS. No vaccine is 100% effective. This is why governments are keen on vaccination programmes but they have to persuade individuals to accept them. This is why you get stupid leaflets with meaningless statements like "most people will be up to 70% less likely" blah blah.

Re hpv and genital warts- yes those strains can also cause cancer, but it's less likely than the other two strains the vaccine protects against.

Re vaccinations - of course individuals benefit from vaccination! If individuals didn't benefit neither could the population.

Of course it is very difficult to say which of your children or siblings or other relatives are alive today, or undamaged today as a result of vaccination programs, but population data shows that some of those individuals are alive today who would have died in epidemics... So they those individuals certainly benefited even if you will never know that maybe that was your child, or your sibling who would have succumbed.

My DM had a sibling who died at the age of 12 after Measles and I have a cousin who completely lost hearing after measles complications. Many families could uncover similar stories if they looked back 2 or 3 generations to when vaccination was sadly not available.

Raw, I said "not necessarily". Individuals have a reduced risk, but may still get the disease.

And that is the con, as govt literature always promotes the idea that you as an individual will be "safe" if you have the vaccination.

Raw, strains 6 and 11 are considered low-risk strains for cancer - they very rarely will go on to cause cancer. They do cause about 90% of genital warts cases though.

How do you think children benefit from the rubella vaccine?

ArgyMargy, that is a perfect statement, sums things up nicely, and it is why I object on moral grounds to many vaccinations, they are given to one person to protect someone else.

Bumbleymummy, children don't benefit from a rubella vaccine, the unborn babies benefit. That's why I particularly object to the rubella vaccine on moral grounds.

Oh, I agree with you FrontDoorstep - I was asking Raw why she thinks they benefit from it because of her "of course individuals benefit from vaccination! " statement.

Rubella is a little bit different in that the main benefit is to "the population", as death/serious complications in a healthy person would be rare. That IS NOT THE CASE with other vaccination programs- the main benefit is to the individual, population benefits are secondary.

But a real and personal benefit to an individual child is still possible - vaccinating a child may prevent that child passing on the disease to an unborn sibling - the consequences of Congenital Rubella can be very grim indeed.

If you don't want to vaccinate, then don't. Nobody is forcing you to.

Thanks RawCoconutMacaroon, you are right, no one is forcing anyone to vaccinate.

That's a fair enough point about a rubella vaccine stopping a child passing rubella on to an unborn sibling, but should a child take a risk for an unborn baby, even an unborn sibling. I mean how would I know that my child wants to risk themselves for an unborn sibling.

Or, you know, the mum could have the vaccine if she needs it and protect any unborn children herself...

"Rubella is a little bit different in that the main benefit is to "the population", as death/serious complications in a healthy person would be rare."

That should be virtually nonexistant rather than rare in the case of rubella - a disease so mild that most parents don't notice that their child has had it. Death and serious complications are rare in other normal childhood diseases - chicken pox, measles, mumps.

Vaccinating babies against rubella brings no benefit whatsoever to the babies themselves, and is hence ethically indefensible.

Test girls in their teens for rubella immunity and vaccinate them at that point if necessary. Don't bother testing boys.