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especially their reproductive organs, are growing and developing. How do we know that a vaccine that didn't harm an adult won't harm a child?

Also, the study period for Gardasil was not even long enough for cervical cancer to develop. Cervical cancer only occurs in people who have been infected with HPV for a decade or more. Gardasil was shown to prevent cervical precancerous lesions that lead to cervical cancer, so researchers assumed that cervical cancer would never develop. But they don't know for sure. If girls get vaccinated and think this medicine will protect them from cervical cancer, as it's widely advertised, they may stop getting pap smears and then not know that they have cervical cancer until it's too late. They would be worse off finding the cervical cancer when it's in a progressed state than if they had never gotten the vaccine at all.

Furthermore, in the clinical trial report for Gardasil, it states that, "It is not known whether Gardasil can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant women or if it can affect reproductive capacity.". Tests were only conducted on lab ratsno birth defects were found, but is that really enough proof to then go on and vaccinate every girl in America? Too much is being gambled when you make it mandatory for all sixth grade girls to be vaccinated with a brand new medicine.

Besides the objections to the money-hungry drug company and the fact that insufficient testing has been done, there's the possible psychological affects the vaccine could have on young girls. They may think they're protected from something that they're really not. The HPV vaccine does not protect against pregnancy, HIV, or any other STI's or STD's. It doesn't even protect against most forms of HPV. There are 37 strains of HPV that are transmitted through sexual contact. Only four strains are targeted by Gardasiltypes 6, 11, 16, and 18. Granted, types 6 and 11 are responsible for 90% of all cases of genital warts and types 16 and 18 cause 70% of cervical cancer, but Gardasil does not protect against the other 10 and 30%. Condoms and other safe sex practices must still be used even if one is vaccinated with Gardasil. Gardasil may give a false sense of security to girls and they may think they don't need to use any preventative methods.

Another reason that the vaccine should not be mandatory is that the strains Gardasil protects against are not that common. Only 3.4% of women who are infected with HPV have one of the four types in the vaccine.

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