Thursday, December 18, 2008

HPV Vaccine hits the headlines again


The controversial vaccine against cervical cancer has hit the headlines again with a woman claiming her 12-year-old daughter became paralysed after receiving the injection. Doctors and health officials are denying that Ashleigh Cave's collapse and subsequent paralysis have anything to do with the Cervarix vaccine (similar to Gardasil) but the cause of her illness has not been identified and critics argue that the five-year pilot study was too short to ensure the safety of the drug.

Jackie Fletcher of Jabs, an organisation campaigning against the use of this vaccine, stated: "We should halt the HPV vaccine programme in the UK until we get to the bottom of whether this poor girl's paralysis was caused by the vaccine or not."