Thousands of girls fall ill in cervical cancer jab safety row
Thousands of teenage girls have suffered serious illness after being vaccinated against cervical cancer.
official figures show the HPV vaccination programme drew 8,228 reports of suspected side-effects over the last decade – almost more than all other routine jabs put together.
More than a quarter of these reports were classed as ‘serious’, a category that includes symptoms severe enough to require hospital treatment or even be life-threatening.
Worried mothers have told how their previously healthy daughters have suffered fits, extreme tiredness and even been left wheelchair-bound after being vaccinated in their early teens.
In some cases, the girls started to feel ill on the day they were vaccinated. others became sick several weeks later.
concern about side- effects has led Japan’s health ministry to stop recommending girls be vaccinated. European authorities are investigating possible links with the rare heart condition postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
But UK watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which collected the figures on suspected side-effects, urged parents not to worry. It said the HPV vaccine has been given to more than eight million people in the UK, and there are ‘no major safety concerns’.
charities warned that cervical cancer can cause infertility and early menopause, as well as kill.
cervical cancer is the most common form of the disease in women under-35. the HPV jab has routinely been given to 12 and 13year-old girls since 2008. It prevents infection by the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus which is behind the majority of cervical cancer cases.
It is thought the vaccination programme could save almost half of the 1,000 lives lost each year to the disease.
However, campaigners say parents are not being given enough
‘Lost the ability to walk’
i nformation about potential side-effects of the vaccine.
And they say girls who fall ill after vaccination are not being taken seriously by GPs when parents suggest the illness could be vaccine-related. Jackie Fletcher, of pressure group Jabs, said: ‘Pre- viously fit and healthy young girls have developed seizures or viral fatigue, some have lost the ability to walk. And years on, some have still not recovered.’
Manuel Martinez- Lavin, an expert in chronic pain, has urged doctors to be aware of possible links between the jab and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, where simply standing up after lying down can trigger an abnormally high heart rate.
He is also concerned about links with fibromyalgia, a condition that causes long-term pain all over the body.
Writing in the journal clinical Rheumatology, Dr Martinez-Lavin said while vaccination has been ‘one of the most effective public health measures in the history of medicine’, side-effects seem to be more common with the HPV vaccine than with others.
the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said the ‘expected benefits in preventing illness and death from HPV infection outweigh the known risks’.
Importantly, the 8,228 adverse drug reaction reports in the past decade about the jab relate to suspected side-effects. they do not prove a link with the vaccine.
Robert Music, of Jo’s cervical cancer trust, said: ‘ We strongly encourage females to protect t hemselves against cervical cancer and this i ncludes both getting vaccinated and attending regular screening when invited.’