a girl has died after being given cervarix

[stuffitllllama]

here

well they haven't tested it on immune impaired people

that's, like, half the population nowadays

"the school says she had no health problems at all, bit worrying for everyone out there with no symptoms of a life-threatening condition that you don't know you've got until you've had the vaccine, and then you just die "

Very, very good point, stuffitlllama

Aren't you all leaping to conclusions a bit?

lol @ porto

"the results of a preliminary post-mortem examination had "revealed a serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death".

"We are awaiting further test results which will take some time," she said. "However indications are that it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death."

So at this stage we have no idea whether her death had anything at all to do with the vaccine. It could just be a tragic coincidence. Scaremongering!

Nonono Portofino, it has to be the vaccine that caused this tragic death. Even if dedicated, trained doctors and pathologists discover a different cause while doing a careful and complete post-mortem examination, they're obviously lying and it's got to all be a cover-up. Because there's no chance whatsoever that this could just be an awful, horrendous coincidence. And, of course, schools have much more medical knowledge about their pupils than doctors could possibly find in a post-mortem so if a school says she was healthy then without question she was healthy.

FFS.

More seriously, my thoughts go out to this girl's family and friends. I cannot imagine what they are going through.

It doesn't have to be one or the other does it? Vax or health problem.

It feels like it's 'Oh she had an underlying condition, that's ok then, couldn't be the vax'. Surely there's every possibility that she had an underlying condition and that in addition to the vax the combination caused her death. As a parent of a dd with an underlying condition I find it less than comforting TBH. I'm doing my best to assess benefit against risk but the risk is always clouded by the health issues. Between this and the bloody swine flu vax I just want to wrap dd up and take her off the the North Pole or something. It's doing my head in.

Unfortunately it could just be a terrible coincidence. Young people do die suddenly when no-one realised they will ill - check out this website www.c-r-y.org.uk/what_is_the_media_saying.htm or just read this bit

"According to the Cardiac Risk in the Young website, an estimated 12 people under 35 die from undiagnosed heart conditions each week. The term SDS encompasses a multitude of problems that can affect the hearts of young people. The most common abnormal heart rhythm is atrial fibrillation which causes an irregular heartbeat. "

It is posible that the stress surrounding vaccination was a factor in this girl's death. However if this was her problem she could easily have died the day before while doing PE.

With 1.4 million doses of vaccine there will be terrible coincidences.

yes there will be a lot more terrible coincidences too. such a lottery, esp with the gaps in the test data. theyshould definitely stop giving it in schools. what if others with symptom free previously undiagnosed conditions collapse like this? should be given in safe environment

Well cervical cancer causes 1000 deaths a year. That's nearly 3 women a day. That is a certainty! We don't know what this girls cause of death is yet - but the media of course go off on one.

Some perspective is needed! I do think if you have these concerns they should be discussed with your GP rather everyone getting a big panic on here.

Some of these posts ,seem to be hysterical in tone, surely what our daughters need is calm reasoned decision by their mothers?

otherwise, we will have the mmr problem all over again.
STDs are an enormous problem and we cant pretend doesnt exsist, we can do something about it, we owe it to our children to take a balanced view of things.
just when our kids were babies , you watched your child ,and as long as there were no contra indications ,they were innoculated (just as you were probably when you were a child)for their own good and for the good of the population . I think its an element of informed trust we need here.

Absolutely Portofino, people should go to their gps and ask to be checked thoroughly for all underlying symptom-free medical conditions before they get vaccinated, and talk it through with them. It's a shame there's no guarantee the vaccine would stop those three a day dying as well, but we don't know that it would, or how long it would work at stopping people dying. They could still get the other cancer causing warts too.

Everybody should go to the GP and talk about it with them. Also they should say, what did GSK mean when they said no data is available on people with an immune impaired response. They said it in a letter to GPs so perhaps they explained it to the GPs as I don't think it's explained in the NHS leaflet. I think now that this girl has died GPs will be more than happy to explain it to all the parents and also to have a quick check of all the girls for underlying conditions or impaired immune responses.

Stuffit: you want all girls to be "checked thoroughly for all symptom-free medical conditions"? What are these exactly and how long do you think a "thorough check" would take? Do you really think we should over-medicalise our daughters like this, based on no evidence whatsoever?

Or is it a "...quick check of ... impaired immune responses"? Hmmm... that would include an HIV test for example. And lengthy measurements of T- and B-cell populations and their function. Just try and think things through, please.

I really don't think you have the slightest idea of what you are proposing.

From what I read - there have been 1.4 million doses of this vaccine, and 4500 adverse reactions noted - headaches, nausea, sore arm etc. The likelihood of serious problems in a healthy girl is infinitismly small. If your daughter had allergies or asthma, or auto-immune problems - then obviously you need to discuss the risk factors for any immunisations.

Hi, just joining in today as my dd was due to have this in November this year. I decided last month after lots of research that she would not have this done for AT LEAST another 2 years if ever.

I have access to certain medical sites and have read the SPC's (summary of product characteristics)on both of these drugs and would not chose any 1 of them over the other. The only alleged benefit of Merck's Gardasil is that it protects against warts as well. These cost the NHS about £23million a year so in 3-4years time the additional cost of Merck's Gardasil would have balanced out.

For those of you who dont know why the SPC is so important it is this information that the drug companies MUST provide to get the drug licensed. However the drug companies have a wonderful way of wording their results. For example instead of saying it didnt work on 10% of people they would say it worked for 90%. This wording makes a huge difference when looking at figures.

I am not prepared to risk my daughter's health both short-term and long-term until these drugs have been used & licensed for more than 4 years.

As I understand it (I am prepared to be proven wrong) they do not know the long term results of efficiency. So vaccinating my child at 12 when in 3 years the vaccine might only be working at 40-50% efficiecy seems a waste of time when HOPEFULLY (she has said this & er attitude i think will prove her right)she would not consider sex until 15-16 anyway.

in my PERSONAL opinion the side effects out way the jab and other health bodies still say that you should still have regular screening anyway!!

The government should drop the age of cervical screening back to 20-21years.

here are some links (hopefully) so that you will be able to see for yourself some of the sites i have searched.

www.cogforlife.org/gardasilfacts.htm

emc.medicines.org.uk/medicine/20204/SPC/Cervarix/

emc.medicines.org.uk/medicine/19016/SPC/GARDASIL/

The medicines.org sites are very technical and you should be advised to ask your GP to explain anything you do not understand.

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E1DE1331F936A25756C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/7/795

cancerdrugnewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/cervarix-on-top-in-head-to-head-but-how.html

This last site states that gsk cervarix is only used in 2 countries the uk & netherlands (hmm are they a british company based in the netherland????)

It is a hard decision to make as YOU have to decide what is best for your child based on Government information. Hopefully these sites will help show that they dont always know best but if you can afford up to £400 to use Merck's gardasil, i personally would use that but not until my dd is at least 14 (2 years time) when more research has been done.

sorry its long winded but i belive we are all entitled to be well informed and not just follow where we are lead.

to me it looks like someone is aiming for survival of the fittest

Musukebba, i know, it would just take forEVER and cost so much money, but as this was an underlying medical condition without any symptoms at all up to vaccine and death, and it's something they have never tested for, and they didn't test the vaccine at all on anyone with immune problems, I think, really, GPs should be prepared to do it.

I mean, you've got half the population with asthma and whatever, and the rest symptom free but with a possibly fatal underlying condition, and I think we've got a right to be checked, included heart scans, MRI scans, all that sort of thing, if they are that keen for us to vaccinate our girls, otherwise it makes a mockery of informed consent, which works on the basic of a risk benefit decision, and we can't make that decision with confidence when we don't know the risk.

Sorry just read your post again Mus so a bit more..

"What are these exactly and how long do you think a "thorough check" would take?"

Well I really don't know, that's up to the doctors, but when they find out what this one is, then they can at least check for that. Also someone suggested heart arrythmia, another useful check.

Do you really think we should over-medicalise our daughters like this, based on no evidence whatsoever?

It's just checking really, because without the checks, the vaccine could be over-medicalising, and in fact I think it would be, I think we could say that this poor girl was over medicalised to the point of death, really.

Or is it a "...quick check of ... impaired immune responses"? Hmmm... that would include an HIV test for example. And lengthy measurements of T- and B-cell populations and their function.

Yes, or if they don't want to do them, just announce that this vaccine HASN'T BEEN TESTED ON ANYONE WITH AN IMMUNE IMPAIRED RESPONSE. I think that would make it an informed decision.

Have definitely thought it through thanks! I have a really good idea of what it means, and I think it's the government that didn't and don't. I mean, everybody knows how many immune issues there are about nowadays. Allergies and atopic conditions in so many families, epipens in every school and so on.

And they release a vaccine for a mass programme which hasn't been tested on immune impaired people! That's nuts! And they tell the doctors about it and they don't tell the patients! Now that's wicked.

Stuffit: what you are suggesting is that all healthy children who have no signs of medical problems are at risk of "something" in this world, and that therefore they should go and get extensive investigations into their physical and immunological responses. Investigations that require procedures such as exposure to radiation (X-Rays. CT, MRI), possibly injection of contrast dyes, nerve conduction studies, gastroscopy, colonoscopy, and multiple blood samples. All of these carry a risk of dying from the procedure itself.

Never mind the psychological impact: can you not see that by thoroughly investigating all healthy children without any rational reason, you are also putting them at a risk.
That's what I want you to think through.

I know Musukebba, awful isn't it, but then you have to say it's not an informed decision, it's just a lottery. How can you compare the risk to the benefit when you don't know the risk? It's like maths with too many variables. Sooner or later you have to guess. But it's not an informed decision because you don't have all the information.

In fact, we don't have all the information about benefits either, so really it's just a complete gamble!

Life is a complete gamble though! Our job is to protect our children and we spend a lot of time weighing up risks and benefits. But at the end of the day - shit happens! You can be that 1 person in 100/3000/4 million who something terrible happens to and there is not much you can really do about it even if you know ALL the risks and ALL the benefits.

For every single thing you do, someone somewhere has probably been that 1 in a (x) person. Driving the car, climbing a ladder, having a baby, going on holiday, taking a tablet, catching a train, leaving your dcs at school....etc etc.

In all of those cases, I can think of examples where someone has died! But everyone else carries on as the chances of these things happening is fortunately small. you HAVE to, or go stark staring mad!

And we still have no information that tells us that this vaccination caused the death of this poor girl!

Portofino-but what if this was YOUR child . A close relative of ours (aged 18 btw) suffered a very adverse reaction a few months ago. She is still hospitalised and because of her condition now she is only allowed very short supervised home visits. She was a very lively ,happy teenager. Her current condition has been confirmed as an adverse reaction to this vaccine.