Hpv Vaccine Essay

After reading posts about how the HPV vaccine caused a lot of deaths and serious problems, I couldn’t but question whether the second event was caused by the first or whether it was merely a correlation. In fact, it is very unwise to directly jump to conclusions; correlation doesn’t mean causation. According to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) database, there have been 24,000 reports of adverse events with Gardasil. This seems to be a big number; however, also according to the VAERS, there have been 60,000 reports of adverse events with measles, rubella and mumps vaccines. Looking at these numbers, one must understand that it is normal to get such reports regarding safe vaccines. If I took the first shot of the Gardasil vaccine and then felt something unusual I might go and report it online as a side-effect of Gardasil because this is what first comes to mind. However when looking at these big numbers one must know that most of the side-effects of Gardasil are headaches, nausea, fever, swelling around the injection site, and syncope. Some cases of deaths have been reported, and a huge fuss was observed on how Gardasil is the reason behind those deaths. There is no proof that the vaccine caused any of those deaths. Actually, “the CDC investigated the most serious of these reports using another surveillance tool, the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD). They looked at Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), ovarian failure, severe allergic reactions and death, among others, and found that those who got the vaccine weren’t any more likely to have these things happen than those who didn’t get the vaccine” (http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/just-vax-please-hpv-vaccination-do-benefits-outweigh-risks-1614). Also, there w...

... middle of paper ...

...tion, nearly 80% of cases occur in low-income countries, where cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women. Of course by taking the vaccine one cannot eliminate the cancer since it only targets four strains of HPV but it will surely reduce those numbers greatly, and isn’t this what we want in the end?

Finally, I believe that whether one should take the vaccine or not is a personal choice. Looking at both the benefits and the risks and seeking advice from knowledgeable doctors, a girl must then decide whether she wants to take the vaccine or not. Take home message: one must not directly believe what he/she reads, information posted online is not always reliable; numbers might seem shocking at first but they might mean something trivial. Always do your research; evaluate the pros and cons, talk to specialized people about the issues, and then make a decision.