Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines for cervical cancer in young girls

[thisAngelBites]

I have a son, but for those of you who have daughters, and especially those approaching puberty, I thought I would share some things I learned after doing some reading about Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines for some strains of HPV (which cause some cervical cancers).

Neither Gardasil nor Cervarix reduce the rates of cervical cancer as well as screening (which means pap smears), which I was shocked to learn given all the promotion of these vaxes! Pap smears have never killed anyone, whereas Gardasil has been associated with automimmune motor neuron disease, and there have been a small number of deaths from the vaccine (approx 150), as well as a fair amount of other, less serious adverse events.

Schools in the UK hand out these jabs like they are sweets, and I don't know if they are doing the same in the US and in the rest of the world, but it's worth knowing that the best way to prevent cervical cancer is to teach your young daughters, from the time they are becoming sexually active to have regular pap smears. Those shots do not protect against cervical cancer as well as regular pap smears.

[tarmyg]

This is the biggest pile of bullshit I have read today.

[RaginCajun]

with the amounts of anal and oral sex out there nowadays, cancer from HPV is on the rise

[Times Roman]

we are a crazy mixed up society. some vaccine protestors actually put other kids at risk by not taking the recommended shots.

this one is not being driven nearly as much as some of the others.

[thisAngelBites]

This is the biggest pile of bullshit I have read today.

Such big bullshit that you have nothing substantive to say?

[thisAngelBites]

Roman, I think you are not taking seriously the philosophical issues here. You are requiring that someone get an invasive medical procedure (under duress) in order to protect another party. I think this is a serious matter (even if it departs from the original point I was making, which is that there are less risky ways to better prevent cervical cancer) Do you think that people should be compelled to donate organs because forced donations improve the lives of others?

Now, we KNOW that vaccines cause some deaths - no one in medicine disputes this, although it is not often discussed in the mainstream press. We substantiate vaccines as a good choice anyway because we think they do far more good that the harm they cause. But we do in fact require people to have invasive injections which might actually kill them, when they might well have otherwise been okay. And yet their actions may impinge on others. I guess I don't see it as such a simple matter.

we are a crazy mixed up society. some vaccine protestors actually put other kids at risk by not taking the recommended shots.

this one is not being driven nearly as much as some of the others.

[David LoPan]

I am so glad to see a girl post in the off topic discussion.

I would suggest that parents buy a copy of Sauer's Manual of Skin Diseases and leave it open to the std parts. Worked great for our kids and we started this when they were like 8. If you want until they are close to puberty or its way to late. We also had both our kids get that shot and didnt have a problem. I think that vaccines do not cause autoimmune diseases and people should get vaccinated. There is a difference between prevention and detection. Pap smears only detect not prevent.

[thisAngelBites]

Consider how the line between prevention and detection is actually very blurry in diseases that are very slow-progressing, which can usually be cured by early detection, like cervical cancer. This is the reason for the fact that there are less cervical cancer cases with women who get regular paps than women who get either gardasil or cervarix.

I'm glad your children didn't have any adverse events, but the fact that they didn't doesn't really mean, anything, does it? I presume you weren't making any claim like that.

You can say that you think vaccines do not cause autoimmune diseases, but there are a number of medical researchers who are very concerned about this very matter. A lot of the reporting of these vaccines' adverse events started in earnest in 2009. There was a paper presented at the American Neurological Association's annual meeting for a girl who contracted ALS shortly after gardasil. There were a couple of cases presented at the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis's annual meeting in which multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica developed following vaccination with gardasil. In the journal Multiple Sclerosis, there were five cases of multiple sclerosis following vaccination in 5 cases in NSW, Australia (formerly healthy patients presenting with atypical or multifocal demyelinating syndromes within the 21 days post-vaccination). There's a lot more, but you get the idea. Researchers have gone on record saying that the HPV vaccine elicits a particularly strong inflammatory systemic immune response. Maybe you can say why you don't think vaccines (any?) ever cause autoimmune diseases.

There is also a lot of concern that the immunity these jabs confer is not long-lasting enough to actually prevent any cancers, and that they only postpone cancers. This analysis was provided by the principal investigator for the gardasil clinical trials.

There is definitely concern about the vaccines in the professional community, even if you don't share that concern. And in the end, that same principal investigator says women get less cervical cancer with regular pap smears than they do with either jab. Although some of the adverse events that occurred will be strictly temporal coincidences, if you look you will find lots of cases and even if they are only potential rather than conclusive risks, balanced against the risks of pap smears, I'd say pap smears win. And since having the jabs is the less efficacious choice, I don't understand why anyone who knew all of this would choose the vax, except for cases where there were concerns that the woman would not have access to regular medical care. Maybe you can explain why you went that route given this information.

[David LoPan]

I tend to go with what the CDC states CDC - HPV Vaccine Safety - Vaccine Safety and I am a believe in getting vaccinated for everything. Do some people have reactions to some, like my wife and the flu shot, but for the most part they are safe IMO.

I am a medical professional and I get vaccinated for a lot of things but I missed my TDAP and got a TD instead. Well, some people didnt believe in getting thier shots nor their kids and I ended up getting pertussis (whooping cough). Catch that or something else you could be vaccinated against and you will wish you would have. They are not an end all as with HPV but they sure help.

[thisAngelBites]

I tend to evaluate things myself, and rely a lot less on others, especially institutions. I just see too many flaws in the reasoning that others, and of course, public health is not focused on the well-being of individuals, but rather overall well-being, in a sort of utilitarian way, even if some people get sacrificed along the way. That's the nature of it, but it doesn't always serve me, so I dispense with it when it is not useful.

I get what you're saying about wishing you had the jab when you get the illness. The same goes for having the bad luck to be the person who dies or is seriously injured by the jab: when that happens, you will wish you didn't.

Thanks for the chat.

[Hoggage_54]