Vaccination is one of public health’s greatest achievements, but today’s sociopolitical climate promotes unfounded fears. In turn, this fear-mongering has led to outbreaks of otherwise rare infectious diseases, such as measles and whooping cough. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines protect against two HPV strains that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers, which itself is the second-most common type of cancer in women worldwide. Immunization has the potential to eliminate these viral strains, which would save lives and reduce health care costs — but, unfortunately, vaccine horror stories are a dime a dozen on the Internet, and HPV vaccines like Gardasil are popular targets for vaccine opponents.
Of 57 million Gardasil doses given in the United States, 40 confirmed deaths have occurred in recipients. However, these deaths were not caused by vaccination.
There are many claims flying around that Gardasil causes serious side effects, including death. However, claims that Gardasil can lead to death aren’t supported by good evidence. Generally speaking, people who make these accusations obtain their information from a publicly accessible database called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which collects claims of adverse events from anyone — including health care providers, patients, or family members.
Most people don’t realize that the phrase “adverse event” cannot be used interchangeably with the term “side effect.” An adverse event is something that occurs after a vaccination — such as a headache, seizure, depression, or death. It could happen one second after being injected with a vaccine or more than a year afterward. It could be a coincidence, or it might be caused by vaccination. For example, if two weeks after receiving a flu shot I get a headache, I could legitimately claim it is an “adverse event,” even if my headache had nothing to do with the shot. An adverse event is only called a side effect if it is found to have been caused by vaccination.
Despite its occasional misrepresentation in print media, social media, and the blogosphere, VAERS is not a source of information about verified side effects — it is a database of adverse events that have been self-reported by the public. Anyone can submit a report to VAERS — heck, I could claim that the flu shot gave me telekinetic powers in addition to that headache, and it would be recorded in the database. That doesn’t mean that you should worry about coming down with a nasty case of telekinesis after getting a flu shot at the corner drug store. Continue reading →
Posted in Sexual Health	| Tagged adverse effects, adverse event, adverse events, adverse reactions, anti-vaccination, anti-vaccinationist, anti-vaccine, anti-vax, autopsies, Can Gardasil Kill You?, cancer, causal relationship, causation, cause and effect, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cervical cancer, coincidence, coincidental, confirmed, death, death certificate, deaths, dizziness, epidemiology, fainting, fear, fear-mongering, fever, Gardasil, Gardisil, headache, hives, HPV, HPV vaccine, human papillomavirus, immunization, infection, infectious disease, influenza, medical records, mortality, nausea, prescription drug abuse, pulmonary embolism, risk, safe, safety, seizure, sexually transmitted disease, sexually transmitted infection, side effect, side effects, Silgard, STD, STI, suicide, vaccination, vaccine, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, vaccines, VAERS, verified, virus	| 1 Reply
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