Last updated on September 27th, 2020 at 11:14 am
Safe. Prevents cancer.
More fear mongering from the antivaccination forces, this time claiming that “mainstream news media is widely reporting today that a French teenager has filed a lawsuit against French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur, and France’s health regulators, over side-effects that were caused by the Gardasil HPV vaccine.” The plaintiff is claiming that the vaccine induced multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease that results from inflammation of neurons. The best available evidence is that MS is caused by a virus, which someday will be prevented with a vaccine!
Formally known as the HPV quadrivalent vaccine, Gardasil (or Silgard in Europe) is a vaccine that prevents infection by the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease. The vaccine specifically targets subtypes 16 and 18, that cause not only approximately 70% of cervical cancers, but they also cause most HPV-induced anal (95% linked to HPV), vulvar (50% linked), vaginal (65% linked), oropharyngeal (60% linked) and penile (35% linked) cancers. It also targets HPV6 and HPV11, which account for approximately 90% of external genital warts. The viruses are generally passed through genital contact, almost always as a result of vaginal, oral and anal sex.
Let’s be clear here. Gardasil prevents cancers–serious, life threatening cancers.
Furthermore, the HPV quadrivalent vaccine has been shown to be extraordinarily safe in two different and large epidemiological studies, one with over 700,000 doses and the other with over 350,000 doses. The relative safety of the HPV vaccine is not in question except by those who engage in logical fallacies and anecdotes. The size of these two studies were so large, so impressive, that they would have uncovered extremely rare events, and there were none.
We have discussed this issue before. Teenagers are at risk of many chronic diseases that are coincidental to vaccines. For example, the rate for MS in some populations in Europe is close to 200 per 100,000. Without any substantial and incontrovertible evidence that the HPV vaccine is linked to MS, and with substantial evidence that MS is caused by viruses and is fairly prevalent in Europe, one can only conclude scientifically that this child had a coincidental MS attack. That is sad, and I wish we could have prevented the disease, and someday we might–but blaming Gardasil is simply irresponsible, since we have evidence it saves lives.
So, let’s debunk some of the crazy points made by the fear-mongering anti-Gardasil article:
- No, we have no evidence that Gardasil caused MS. In fact, we have evidence otherwise, since the background rate of MS in Europe is substantial.
- VAERS data (yes, the article decided to use VAERS) is merely observational. It is not controlled, it does not show causality, and it is abused by those who fail to understand the scientific and epidemiological value of the data.
- A lawsuit certainly does not imply causality, especially since nothing has been adjudicated so far. And even if the French legal system finds for the plaintiff, it does not provide evidence of causality. Courts are terrible evaluators of scientific data.
- Japan did not stop using Gardasil vaccine. The Japanese Health Ministry, under pressure from the anti-science crowd, withdrew its recommendation for the vaccine based on adverse events that were actually BELOW the rates of those same events in the general population. In other words, they failed to take any epidemiology courses.
- Oh, and the author blames Bill Gates in some complicated, nonsensical conspiracy theory about killing girls with HPV vaccines. It’s clear that for the vaccine deniers, since they don’t have real scientific evidence, they need to blame Bill Gates. And blame him again if that doesn’t work.
Therefore, the HPV vaccine is safe, based on over 1 million doses in controlled studies. HPV vaccine prevents the virus that causes some serious, deadly cancers. Multiple sclerosis is probably not caused by the HPV vaccine (or any vaccine to be factual). Multiple sclerosis is probably caused by a virus that one day will be prevented by a vaccine developed by real scientists (and if I’m still writing then, rest assured the vaccine deniers will risk their children contracting MS to whine nonsensically about that new vaccine).
Gardasil saves lives. And I’ve shown that scientific fact based on solid scientific, published evidence.
If you need to search for scientific information and evidence about vaccines try the Science-based Vaccine Search Engine.
Key citations:
- Arnheim-Dahlström L, Pasternak B, Svanström H, Sparén P, Hviid A. Autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic adverse events after immunisation of adolescent girls with quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine in Denmark and Sweden: cohort study. BMJ 2013 Oct;347:f5906 doi: 10.1136/bmj.f5906. Impact factor=17.215.
- Camenga DR, Dunne EF, Desai MM, Gee J, Markowitz LE, Desiliva A, Klein NP. Incidence of genital warts in adolescents and young adults in an integrated health care delivery system in the United States before human papillomavirus vaccine recommendations. Sex Transm Dis. 2013 Jul;40(7):534-8. doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0b013e3182953ce0. PubMed PMID: 23965766. Impact factor=2.594.
- Gilden DH. Infectious causes of multiple sclerosis. Lancet Neurol. 2005 Mar;4(3):195-202. Review. Erratum in: Lancet Neurol. 2005 May;4(5):269. PubMed PMID: 15721830. Impact factor=22.959.
- Klein NP, Hansen J, Chao C, Velicer C, Emery M, Slezak J, Lewis N, Deosaransingh K, Sy L, Ackerson B, Cheetham TC, Liaw KL, Takhar H, Jacobsen SJ. Safety of quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine administered routinely to females. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012 Dec;166(12):1140-8. doi: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2012.1451. PubMed PMID: 23027469. Impact factor=4.140.
- Mesher D, Soldan K, Howell-Jones R, Panwar K, Manyenga P, Jit M, Beddows S, Gill ON. Reduction in HPV 16/18 prevalence in sexually active young women following the introduction of HPV immunisation in England. Vaccine. 2013 Nov 5. doi:pii: S0264-410X(13)01492-8. 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.10.085. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24211166. Impact factor=3.492
- Milo R, Kahana E. Multiple sclerosis: geoepidemiology, genetics and the environment. Autoimmun Rev. 2010 Mar;9(5):A387-94. doi: 10.1016/j.autrev.2009.11.010. Epub 2009 Nov 20. Review. PubMed PMID: 19932200. Impact factor=6.069.
