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COMMENT: Examine the facts and rise above the anti-vax noise

The internet is playing a huge role in whether adolescent girls should be given a cervical cancer vaccine. And, as is normal in this country, the debate is played out at full tempo with emotions running at the highest level. There is little room for cool and calm exchanges – the loudest voices, many of them bereft of scientific argument or even reason, are pushed onto screens on tablets and phones.

That is not to say that people who have doubts about the vaccine, and worry about ill-effects, are naïve or ignorant of the facts.
It’s not so very long ago that a government decided not to introduce the vaccine. That decision was made on the basis that it was expensive and that there wasn’t enough money in the exchequer. Remember, this was 2008 and we were heading into a financial storm. Strong public protest blew up over the decision and there was a dramatic u-turn by the Government of the day when TV star Jade Goody died.
A campaign to have schoolchildren immunised against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, is now under way for the seventh years in succession, with the Government and health service urging parents to allow the vaccine to be delivered. They are probably nervously looking at the uptake of the programme. It has slipped from 87% to 50%. That’s not surprising since this is a hard sell, very unlike the campaign to persuade older people to take the anti-flu jab. (remember when the flu jab was first introduced? – people thought that the injection gave you a mild dose of the flu afterwards!)
The problem here is that before a rational debate can take place – a little like the Leo Varadkar election campaign – the white heat of keyboard warrior opinion has taken over. The claim is that the vaccine is harmful and has already caused ill-health to girls. There is no statistical evidence for that claim, neither is there any scientific or medical evidence that this is the case. For mothers and fathers who have access to the internet and who see this constant flow of unfiltered opinion dressed up as fact reaching a torrent, it must be hard to make a decision one way or the other.
The language on the Government and HSE side has sharpened, too. Groups campaigning against the vaccine have been told by Minister Harris to “butt out” of the debate, not a very clever thing to say to parents who are assumed to be intelligent and world wise. The HSE chief Tony O’Brien also waded in, accusing groups of “emotional terrorism”, again not the wisest choice of words when you are trying to persuade people to your argument.


A number of experts have given their opinion that girls should be vaccinated and declared in public that they were having, or would have, their own children vaccinated. The evidence of ill-effects on children has not been proven to be related to the vaccine. Yes, some children have fallen ill but is the vaccine the cause?
Although I have never read it previously, and only did so for the purposes of this article, the picture painted about cervical cancer by the World Health Organisation is frightening. “It is the second most common cancer in women worldwide by age-standardised incidence rate. In 2008, there were an estimated 529,000 new cases and 274,000 deaths due to cervical cancer. 
More than 85% of cervical cancer deaths are in developing countries, where it accounts for 13% of all female cancers. Two HPV vaccines are now being marketed in many countries throughout the world. Both vaccines are highly effective in preventing infection with virus types 16 and 18, which are together responsible for approximately 70% of cervical cancer cases globally. They are also highly effective in preventing precancerous cervical lesions caused by these types…..date from clinical trials and initial post-marketing surveillance conducted in several continents show both vaccines to be safe.”
On that kind of evidence from the premier world health advisory body, I would say to parents “get your daughters vaccinated now” – but then I’m in the fortunate position of not having to make that decision.