The HPV Shot

In the beginning of the school year, my daughter Mariah reminded me that the HPV vaccine was given out this year for the girls in her class.  She is in grade eight and is thirteen years old.  The HPV vaccine in Canada they use is Gardasil.  It is produced by Merck Frost Canada LTD., and was developed to target Cervical Cancer.

In Ontario, my province where I live about 500 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 150 die from the disease annually.  So when I heard the vaccine was offered in school for free, I was all for it.  Of course I wanted to protect my daughter.

Then while on Facebook, one of my friends sent me a video about a girl that had severe reactions from the drug.  I watched in horror, as these once active teenager was so sick, she could barely leave her house.  There were numerous things wrong with her, and she was in tremendous pain.  I watched another video from the site about another teenage girl and her reaction from the drug was even worse.  She was once a very active girl that now can’t even ride a bike.  The back pain she describes is so tremendous; I just couldn’t imagine how she goes on.  There are times she has temporary paralysis and can’t even feel someone toughing her legs. She now takes daily medications for pain and nausea.

After seeing these videos I decided to research this vaccine more.  I got some literature and searched articles on the web.  What I found alarmed me.  As of August 2008, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) received 220 adverse event reports following Gardasil immunizations in Canada.  The PHAC has indicated that each report represented one or more adverse event.  In the United States it has been documented that at least 29 deaths and 10,000 adverse events related to the Gardasil vaccine have been reported.  It has been documented that the reactions range from severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, foaming of the mouth, loss of consciousness, coma, paralysis, Guillian-Barr Syndrome, miscarriages, outbreaks of genital warts and death.

What concerns me is why aren’t parents given this information?  When the permission slip was sent home with my daughter to get the vaccine, the only information was what the vaccine was for.  Nowhere was any information given about the possible side effects.  How can parents make an informed decision if they are made aware of all the possible adverse reactions?

In reality this vaccine has only been formally tested for about four years.  It has not been tested to see if it can cause cancer, or if a young women’s reproductive health will be affected.  This long-term effects are completely unknown.  Therefore “I SAY NO” to this vaccine for my daughter.  I just can’t take the risk.  Of course as a parent I want to protect her, so I will make sure she is well informed about how important it is to have regular checkups and pap smears.

All I can say, it is a parent’s choice; just give us all the information to make this choice one we can live with.