by Frank Shetland

Created on: February 13, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

Question: If you could give your child a shot that may cause unknown health problems in the future, but prevent one specific health problem now would you do it?

Upon hearing that some states are going to require the HPV vaccine, I at first felt elated. How wonderful that even the daughters of parents who naively think that their little girls will not have sex for many years past the average age will now have access to prevention.

Then I stopped to think.
I am not a mother, but I have thought about the fact that when I do have children I may have to have scores of chemicals that I know nothing about shot into my baby in the name of protecting her from disease. All this while childhood illnesses are on the rise, and for reasons we do not yet know, despite desperately searching for answers.
How extensive was the research on the effects of this vaccine on 11-year-old girls? The vaccine has been tested on thousands of grown women, but only a few hundred 11-year-old girls have been tested. This is not enough to say that it has been properly studied. And for how long have we monitored the effects? Can we say that the vaccine will not cause problems much later in life?
The answer is no, we cannot. And we will not for years. So how can states require that their 11-year-old girls be vaccinated? It sounds to me like someone has stock in Merck.
Gardasil, the vaccine in question, does not protect against all forms of HPV that can cause cervial cancer, and cervical cancer can be caused by factors other than HPV. According to the American Cancer Society, "Between 1955 and 1992, the number of cervical cancer deaths in the United States dropped by 74%. The main reason for this change is the increased use of the Pap test." Despite the fact that no one is claiming that vaccine recipients should skip pap tests, the assurance that there is a smaller risk of developing HPV may give women, especially the uninsured who are less likely to receive preventative care anyway, a reason to let the pap test go for just one year. This will send rates back up.
Those who argue for the vaccine rest on the argument that girls are having sex earlier and earlier and it is wonderful to have protection against this disease. However incomplete the protection is, it is some protection against cervical cancer. Unfortunately, there is no such vaccine against HIV, and teen pregnancy is still a rather common occurance. To vaccinate against some types of HPV is to give false security.
Choosing to vaccinate a child should ALWAYS be the parents' decision. The real answer is education. No matter how much we want our young women to stay young, their lives are in their hands. The best we can do is educate them to make smart decisions and use protection every single time. Those who choose not to, and who also choose to assume their daughters are not having sex may have to deal with HIV, teen pregnancy, or other STDs as a result. Perhaps there will one day be a vaccination against ignorance.
(Source: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X _What_are_the_key_statistics_for_cervical_cancer_8.a sp)

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