The cervical cancer vaccine can’t seem to untangle itself of
controversy. First, abstinence groups worked overtime to block its widespread
use, arguing that it would encourage premarital sex. What it actually does is prevent girls from contracting
four of the strands of HPV that are responsible for the majority of cervical
cancer cases in the world. Yes, HPV is an STD, but the vaccine has almost
nothing to do with premarital sex. Since HPV is so easily spread, it is entirely possible that a girl could wait until marriage to have sex and then contract
HPV if her husband had had as much as one sexual encounter before the marriage.
Fortunately, the abstinence argument against the vaccine
has been mostly steamrolled, particularly in the U.K., where a government-funded
program aims to save 400 lives a year by administering the Cervarix vaccine to
300,000 12- and 13-year-old girls. (In the U.S., the more commonly used, but
very similar, vaccine is called Gardasil.)
But the program has gotten some bad—and scary—press
recently, after a 12-year-old girl became paralyzed from the waist down shortly
after receiving the vaccine at school. Ashleigh Cave’s
mother, Cheryl, believes that the shot was implicated in her daughter’s
illness, but doctors have claimed that the vaccination was
unrelated to the sudden onset of Ashleigh’s dizziness and eventual loss of the use of her legs.
Although nothing I’ve read indicates that Ashleigh has been
definitely diagnosed yet, it seems clear that she has Guillain-Barré syndrome,
which can cause paralysis, and which has previously been linked (perhaps
wrongly) with the cervical cancer vaccine.
13 girls are reported to have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré
after receiving the Gardasil vaccine in the U.S., causing some concern among parents about the safety of getting their daughters vaccinated. However, considering the total number of girls who received the vaccine and the natural incidence of the disease, 13 is within the number
of people who would be expected to fall prey to Guillain-Barré just by chance. Doctors and health experts continue to assert that there is no reason to
believe the cervical cancer vaccine is unsafe.
Still, it is only too easy to understand why Ashleigh’s
mother harbors her doubts, considering that her daughter’s initial diagnosis
was “vertigo and generalised myalgia, probably due to recent vaccinations.” I
hope further investigations can set the public’s collective mind at ease.
Photo: straightfromthedoc.com
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