We cannot read this article in Melbourne because our CSL shares are doing very nicely. Also, not one ounce of criticism of the HPV vaccination program will appear in The Age, so where's the problem? I bet you are down on the Olympics and GP car races, too.
And before I forget, do not read the articles by Elizabeth Rosenthal - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/health/21vaccine.html and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/health/policy/20vaccine.html (free registration required).

This kind of anecdotal 'evidence' is worthless unless there is some comparison with a control group. When a million people are given any kind of treatment, some will get sick and some will die. The question is whether more or less of them will get sick or die than in a million people who are not given the treatments. If I get a Gardasil injection and then get the flu, is it the injection's fault? Or would I have got it anyway? Only a controlled experiment can determine this; and presumably Gardasil has been through the same rigorous testing - including controlled experiments - as other vaccines.

Yep and RU486 gives you AIDS.

Honestly. that's true. I just pulled the figures from where the sun don't shine.

Give us a break.

Rubbish,

No vaccine or medicine is completely without side effects. The couple of instances quoted are entirely anecdotal and possibly co incidental.

If 3m doses of sugar water were given I am sure that there would be a rash of similar complaints.

The 3m doses will probably save 50 000 girls from a long and painful death.

Quip that HPV hasn't been proved to cause cancer is the same used by the tobacco companies to deny a link with lung cancer.

Nothing is perfect. The risks of vaccinating are much lower than the risks of not vaccinating.

However, I would agree that giving boys the vaccine will help (herd), but as it needs girls as vector, and girls suffer the consequences, giving it to boys is neither justified financially or medically.

Compared to the number of lives this vaccine is going to save (70% prevention rate if I remember correctly) the small number who die from the injection are a drop in the ocean to the number who will live thanks to this vaccine.

This article should be ignored as the author has failed to see the bigger picture

I, too, have always wondered why Gardasil was introduced to the market with such haste. Were proper trials conducted? There was hardly time between when the "miracle" drug was discovered and when girls and women were being encouraged to line up for the treatment. Thanks to Renate Klein for the very helpful information she gives in her article. I can't believe that people have made comments like "nothing is perfect" or, the number of people who die compared with those who don't is "a drop in the ocean". What if your daughter was one of those unfortunate "drops" in the ocean? Surely the experience with HRT, and all those women who contracted breast cancer because of it, is enough to make us cautious this time.

bettymc