What do you think about Gardasil for young girls?
(by Mrs. Sketch)
The push is on to get all young girls vaccinated with Gardasil to protect them from cervical cancer. And they're still trying to make it mandatory for all girls to receive this vaccine before starting school.
New findings show Gardasil may only protect against 2 of the virus strains that cause cancer. It's also unknown how long the immunity will last, if at all as cervical cancer takes a long time to develop and the drug has only been available since June of 2006. By September of 2007, there had already been more than 80 cases of serious side effects, and those are the ones that got reported. Also as of that time, there had been 1,600 adverse reactions reported to the FDA, including 3 deaths from blood clots from the vaccine. The side effects reported were worse with pregnant women, including miscarriage and fetal abnormalities.
My feeling is that Gardasil is still too new a vaccine to force it on every girl before she can start school. If it follows the path of other super drugs, we won't know for decades the real harm it can do. Forced vaccinations should only be for communicable disease control for the mass population, if at all. Cervical cancer doesn't fall in that category and there are just too many unknowns with this vaccine for me.
What do you think?
4 comments:
I would not give it to a minor daughter unless her pediatrician made an extremely good case for it.
Strictly speaking from a vaccine point of view, I would never, ever use it if I had a minor daughter. It's way too soon and you are using it on young people. No way.
I did research, and discussed it with my daughter's doctor and we got the vaccine. It is a series of 3 shots, in fact she has her 2nd shot next week.
We have a history of female issues including cancer, and my sister has HPV.
I think it really has to be the parent's choice and if you feel comfortable talking to your daughter include her in the decision. Micheyla turned 12 today, and she made the choice herself ultimately.
From my understanding, there are 10 to 20 types of virus that can cause cancer, and Gardasil protects against 2!! And with the possiblity of serious side effects, including death, I believe it is too soon to use this vaccine. I hope I am wrong and this turns out to be a good thing, although with the past record of big Pharma, I'm worried.
Post a Comment