Cancer jab to stop Cervical Cancer Type 16 & 18

[AlexTehManiac]

Hi, I read up about the cancer jab a few days ago and that it was now a mass program in schools vaccinating people to prevent the cervical cancer types 16 and 18 supposidly causing 70% of cancer cases. Today I read an article and it claims that a 14 y/o girl fell ill and died later on in a University Hospital. Someone very close to me that I love has just been inoculated with the HPV cervical cancer jab and she's feeling a little off colour. I don't know whats in the vaccine and can't find any information on it. What's your take on the situation?

[insane_alien]

well, hundreds of thousands(if not millions) of people have had it and not died or experienced significant sideeffects which makes me think there was a complicating factor in that case.

 

it is safe, you are more likely to die just sitting on your couch than from it.

[SH3RL0CK]

You mean this article? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_vaccine_death

 

Certainly, people occasionally get sick and/or die from vaccine injections. In the past, there wasn't any outcry, but I think some reluctance on the part of people to these vaccines is understandable.

 

IMO, the difference is that in the past the vaccine was to prevent illness which was both more serious and more immediate. An example would be the smallpox vaccine - smallpox is both highly infectious and has a high death rate. Thus, even though there may be some problems with a vaccine, the cost/benefit analysis is clear. But with a vaccine for HPV; the cost/benefit isn't as clear...the disease is not as easily transmittable nor does it have as high a death rate (at least in the short to medium term). I still think the HPV vaccine is probably a good idea, but the case here isn't nearly as strong as it is for other diseases.

 

At some point (and we might be there now), the pharmacutical companies and regulatory agencies will need to grapple with the concept that the cost and problems associated with a vaccine or with a new miracle drug isn't justified by its benefits. That won't be pleasant to the pharmacutical company that spent $billions to develop the vaccine/medicine. Nor would it be for the regulatory agencies who are expected to so something to fight disease (the public and politicians are never pleased to hear the proper course of action is to do nothing).

 

I'm not an expert on medicine, hopefully people with more knowledge will be weighing in on this topic.

[JillSwift]

Keep in mind news loves scary stories - they sell more ads that way. Causation hasn't been established in that death, only correlation.

 

Always keep an eye on anyone who is feeling off colour. Though it's far more likely she's feeling off because of a simple environmental/plant allergy or minor bout of a few too many bacteria on something she ate and is so nothing much to worry about, it's so little effort to keep an eye that it's worth it for those very rare times when it turns out to be something more serious.

 

In the end, don't sweat the HPV jab itself. Statistically the odds are vastly in her favor.

[AlexTehManiac]

Thanks, I'm feeling a tiny bit reassured but it could of been the vac she had the day before as I get a slight feeling a tetanus impoloi vaccination and a cervarix inoculation could react together? I don't know what it'll do but she's already complaining of aching and itching on her arms, etc. I'll let you know if I get any more problems on it but I'm gonna do a small sum-up of the whole cervarix thing and see what I can find out. I've never really been sure about some of these vacs because they have alot of nasty stuff in them that you shouldn't have in your body in the first place. I haven't had a vaccine in 7 years and I've been ill 3 times, once with swine flu [Yes, I was diagnosed with it also..], once with tetanus from a wild dog bite which I got fixed up afterwards and Phamosis. All of which I recovered from fairly quick except swine flu which took me 2 weeks to recover from if not a bit longer. Thanks for all the help on every topic I've posted much appreciated.

 

- Alex.

[CharonY]

Minor irritations and for some vaccinations even mild fever is not that unusual, vaccines are stimulating your immunization after all.

Usually they should not persist for a long time, though. Also note that eve under normal conditions your body gets a lot of nasty stuff. Constantly. That is why we have an immune system in the first place.

 

Again, as others have noted, many if not all of the scare stories are isolated incidents, that may or may not related to vaccinations at all. If enough people are vaccinated you will simply by chance have a few that e.g. die by car accident. Obviously the vaccine will not be the cause though.

Maybe GDG has some nice data to share on this subject?

[GDG]

Sorry, its been too long since I worked for a vaccine company. However, vaccines that cause serious side effects rarely make it all the way through clinical trials. The tolerance for side effects is pretty low for medical conditions that are not life-threatening, and don't relieve pain or other immediate symptoms.

 

If you vaccinate several million people, the odds are that at least a few will die within a day or so (even for no explained reason). Not necessarily due to the vaccination: a certain number of people will die unexpectedly every day, for no previously-suspected reason. And JillSwift is right about the news: the story is not nearly as interesting if they also reveal that the deceased had an aneurysm, and how likely are they to follow up with another story when they find out what the actual cause of death was?

 

Stimulation of the immune system does make you feel "off" -- it turns out that the cytokines that run the immune system also act as neurotransmitters, and that at least some of them contribute to the feeling now called "sickness behavior." Just getting poked with a needle is enough to make many people woozy. One of my daughters used to faint every time she was vaccinated...

[insane_alien]

yeah, so it turns out this girl actually died of an undiagnosed tumour on her heart and lungs and not the vaccine.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/2009/10/01/cervical-jab-teenager-died-from-tumour-in-chest-coroner-reveals-86908-21714553/

 

no need to panic.

[GDG]

I'm happy that the paper saw fit to print the follow-up story

[Mr Skeptic]

Stimulation of the immune system does make you feel "off" -- it turns out that the cytokines that run the immune system also act as neurotransmitters, and that at least some of them contribute to the feeling now called "sickness behavior." Just getting poked with a needle is enough to make many people woozy. One of my daughters used to faint every time she was vaccinated...

 

Interesting. Of course, some vaccines include a compound to actually stimulate the immune system; that way they can include less antigen.

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yeah, so it turns out this girl actually died of an undiagnosed tumour on her heart and lungs and not the vaccine.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/2009/10/01/cervical-jab-teenager-died-from-tumour-in-chest-coroner-reveals-86908-21714553/

 

no need to panic.

 

A cancerous tumor, right?

[insane_alien]

thats what malignant tumour means.

 

it wasn't cervical cancer and there is no way that it could have grown so fast after the jab so it had bugger all to do with the vaccination.

[Mr Skeptic]

I know, but still it's slightly ironic -- a story used to raise fear about an anti-cancer vaccine causing a death turned out to actually be a story of yet another person dying from cancer.