Cervical Cancer Jab for all teen girls

[FlameInHell]

What do you think?

Yay or nay?

Sorry, I'd have to be a bit more convinced that it's safe first. Just read this in the paper today:
'Reports from the US where the Gardasil vaccine has been used for nearly a year in some states, reveal that eight victims died soon after receiving it. The victims, aged from as young as 11 to 22, suffered blood clots or heart attacks. Thousands of side effects have also been linked, many serious. These include 15 cases of paralysis and 239 cases of temporary loss of consciousness. Other suspected reactions include convulsions and numbness.'
The article goes on to describe how a 14 yo became paralysed from the knees down after a booster and how out of 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 have been reported to have experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to foetal abnormalities.
I hate to be the voice of doom but I already have one vaccine-damaged child, I really don't want another one if I can help it.

pixel these stories are indeed very worrying, I can't understand how people choose to ignore this kind of evidence just because it is not 'scientific' enough. can I ask about your dc? tell me to bog off if it is personal, I just feel that we don't get to hear enough about children who are vaccine damaged.

link to an interview with one of the researchers who was involved with developing gardasil www.fwdailynews.com/articles/2007/03/14/online_features/hpv_vaccine/hpv01.txt
the end if the article is very informative about how HPV is transmitted
Lisa X

What on earth were they doing giving a vaccine to pregnant women? Although personally I'd like to see a few more years epedemiological data before consenting for dd to have the vaccine, I wouldn't give much credence to that Jabs article either. Apart from having a bizare idea of what public health is about (apparently only things that people can't help catching, and certainly not STIs) there's also a misquote from the Institutes of Health where cervical cancer is cited as a rare disease for children not adults. Some interesting stuff about aluminium, but too much conjecture for my liking, and no citations of research evidence (I'm never keen on unsupported quotes from experts).

Just look at the statistics available from Cancer Research UK. It is clear that cervical cancer is an uncommon disease, making up just 1% of all cancers. With 2,730 cases diagnosed each year in the UK, it is in fact a rare disease.

The numbers of deaths currently per year in the UK is approx 1,000, with most (as with cancer and other diseases generally) in the post 75 age group.

At an average over all ages of 2.6 deaths per 100,000, it is hardly a raging epidemic.

Moreover, the message from the statistics could not be clearer - mortality rates from this disease are falling rapidly in both the UK and Europe generally without any vaccine at all.

The graphs tell the story. Mortality rates have fallen by 60% over the past 30 years, probably due to a successful screening campaign and maybe also other to do with other factors (health, sexual practices, sex education etc.)

It can be seen that if the elderly are removed from the statistics, the likelihood of dying from this disease is very unlikely. Equally, it would be very interesting to see the "at risk" population removed from the statistics (for instance, those working in the sex industry, drug abusers etc). What would be the liklihood of dying from this disease then?

That is worrying regarding serious side effects but how many girls received the jab??? I would like to see figures showing that. 8/100 is shocking, 8/1000000 isn't iyswim

I would imagine there are deaths related to all medication, anti biotics, contraception for eg

Those statistics do not show the full picture

I'd still let my girls have it and having spoken to them, they are keen to have it now. They have seen what I have been through with my pre-cancerous cells and would like to do as much as possible to reduce the risk

the reason it is relatively rare is prob due to the smear system in this country. But 1000 deaths may not sound alot but tell that to 1000's that have lost their mother, daughter, sister, friend.

If one death is prevented, isn't that good?

Why are you so anti something that could help to protect us?

It isn't compulsory so what is your problem??

I really can't understand why so many people consent to vaccinations without finding out all they can first. you only have to scratch the surface of this one to see that the world is going mad...

I think what struck me specifically with this jab is how very weak the government's own evidence base is for introducing it. The statistics just don't offer support for a mass vaccine programme.

Yet, despite such weak evidence, this jab is being pushed through at huge cost to the taxpayer. Irrespective of the health risk/benefit ratio, I do not think that introducing this jab represents good value for money for the taxpayer.

It is clear that this sexually-transmitted disease could be pretty much eradicated without any vaccine at all. People are much more aware of sexual health these days and the screening programme (which will still have to continue even with a jab) has also been very successful. Other factors have also led to a decline in the incidence of the disease. There is no reason to suppose that the steep downward trend would not continue. But what will now happen is that the downward trend will be put down to the jab....

There must be some incredibly strong lobbying going on by the drug companies - there can be no other explanation.

Even if you had not been cynical about vaccines before, when you look at this particular scenario you are forced to conclude that the jab has got nothing to do with protecting the health of the nation and has everything to do with lining the pockets of the manufacturing drug companies.

The manufacturers are presumably trying to push it through before the disease becomes even rarer, when it would be even harder to justify mass vaccination. (Historically, this would appear to be what happens with mass vaccination).

The introduction of this vaccine is, in effect, a huge coup for the drug manufacturers. It will have the effect of dramatically widening the pharma markets by changing the public's perceptions of the need for vaccines. Now they won't just be for common chilhood infections but also for uncommon diseases, and for diseases that are linked to lifestyle factors, and are therefore pretty much avoidable. It is all deeply insidious. Next they will be introducing vaccines to counter the effect of damage caused by vaccines. Yes, the world really has gone mad.

Cervical cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in women under 35, with around 21 women a week (or 3 every day) dying from it. If you've ever heard someone who has recovered from it talk about their experience, as I have, you would be in no doubt that offering a vaccine to grils before they become sexually active has to be a good thing - it's an offer of protection, people can choose not to have it if they so wish, surely?

Oops girls

sorry minority but 1 death being prevented is not enough to warrent the money being spent or the risk that this vaccine potentially carries.

think of the research that could be paid for with the billions that this vaccine will cost.

the kind of research that could save many more than just 1 life.

but no one is asking you take up this vaccine???

I used one death as low figure, I would think this vaccine has the potential to save many many more

It is a choice some parents and their daughters can take

Research on what? Something more worthy??? Maybe something that isn't transmitted in a virus during unprotected sex?

This cannot be eradicated through education, the HPV virus can be found in people that have never been sexually active.

What is your problem with it?

Obab, please try to get some of your facts right:

"I really can't understand why so many people consent to vaccinations without finding out all they can first."
Yet you are quite happy to post on what is clearly the slightest possible knowledge of HPV. Vis your previous statements that HPV can be cured (it can't) and that health education can eradicate it (it can't because it can't be treated).

"It is clear that this sexually-transmitted disease could be pretty much eradicated without any vaccine at all."
I have not heard anyone with any knowledge of cancer suggest for a moment that cervical cancer could be eradicated, with our without the vaccine. Let's be clear - a smear test is not a cure or prevention for cancer. It is like checking your breasts. It may help eradicate pre-cancerous cells, and if it does detect cancer it may help you get treatment faster and prevent you dying from the disease. This is NOT the same as eradicating the disease.

I don't mind you being sceptical about the vaccine and I agree we all need to read up as much as possible about ALL decisions we take on behalf of our children, but please try to get your facts right before you rubbish a sensible public health initiative.

With that argument we probably shouldn't be bothering with the screening programme either, but there is in this country a very strong women's health lobby, and cancer always gets a bigger share of the health money pot than other diseases (and a lot more research money too because cancer charities get more given to them than other medical charities). The vaccine in question was developed with the heavy involvement of the American National Cancer Institute not just the two drugs companies (vaccines are big in cancer research at the moment). So yes of course the drugs companies are keen to recoup their research costs and make some money, and yes of course we should be careful what we choices we make for our children, but crying conspiracy is perhaps a little extreme without a lot more to back it up. For example where are the relative costs between introducing this vaccine and the costs of treating pre-cancerous cervices and cancers (excluding any emotional costs) for you to state so strongly that there is no value for money case?

as someone who has spent the last 7 years having various treatments for cevrical cancer my daughter will most definatly having any vaccine that can prevent having to go through all that i have.

Obabaddabobba, ds is severely autistic. When he had his first jabs he was ill with a high temperature and screamed for days. His little leg was bright red and swollen to twice the size. Now, I realise that the chances are he would have been autistic anyway, or something else could have triggered it, but I know that the jabs didn't help and I can't help wishing he'd never had them. I'm sure you can understand why I would be very careful about what I let my dd have.

minority -research, I dunno, perhaps into erm.. cervical cancer?

theyoungvisitor, you take me out of context deliberately to suit your argument.
I have not once said that cancer can be erradicated, I said that hpv is being erradicated through screening. fact.

sorry I have had very little sleep. I meant..cervical cancer is being erradicated (deaths from it)if you look at the figures done through screening. I didn't say cancer could be cured though did I? no.

But if there isn't a cure for the HPV virus, what happens after screening? No one has unprotected sex? So every couple out there will be child free as they can't have unprotected sex?

If this vaccine can reduce the risk of HPV, when used alongside safe sex, cervical cancer can be reduced, now that is a more realistic fact

The screening process we have now (smears) isn't eradicating it. It is saving some people but not all. Also, saw soemthing at the weekend that says if you have had pre cancerous cells, you are very likely to get it again, even after treatment. So how does that system help eradicate cervical cancer

We need to help stop the virus in the first place. Maybe 20 years on, after many girls are vaccinated, HPV will be rare but as it stands, it isn't now

But the level of deaths from cervical cancer in the uk are despite our very good screening program, women don't go when called or may already be quite advanced when they are first called (when I was younger it was advised that you went for a smear within a year of first sexual intercourse, now women are not called until they are 25, where potentially they could have picked up an HPV infection in their late (or early!) teens and it has spent years causing damage)
Also, if this vaccine is not offered free of charge on the NHS it would mean that only people who could afford to pay for it could protect their daughters, which surely is not fair.

yay. we innoculate against TB, measles and mumps. if we can innoculate against cancer in any form we should.

says she having just had the treatment for cervical cancer, it sucks.

I agree with minority and monkey - the screening programme is NOT eradicating cervical cancer, or even eradicating deaths from cervical cancer. It may be REDUCING deaths from cervical cancer but women are still dying, and other women are suffering from years of invasive and unpleasant treatments.

Obab, I am not trying to "take you out of context" - but you can't post basic factual errors on a public internet forum and not expect to have them corrected.