Back to School with Gardasil

It’s that time of year: millions of adolescents are going back to school, and news coverage regarding “whether your daughter should get the HPV vaccine” is on the rise.

Unfounded concerns about the vaccine “making girls more promiscuous” aside, the majority of press coverage I have seen on Gardasil and the prospect of the mass vaccination of adolescent girls has been overwhelmingly positive. That was until last week, when the media picked up 2 studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association highlighting the vaccine’s safety risks and the questionable promotional strategies used to convince women and girls to get vaccinated.

No one knows if Gardasil prevents cancer, or for how long, or even whether it is safe. Research has shown that the vaccine can prevent precancerous lesions, but the testing period has been far too short to prove that it will actually prevent cervical cancer. As the disease typically affects women in their 40s, it will be decades before Gardasil’s effectiveness will be known. Moreover, given that the vaccine promises to protect against only 70% of cervical cancers, it will never eliminate the need for regular testing and Pap screening.

Now, I am pro HPV and cervical cancer prevention and am not, by any means, anti-vaccination or even anti-Gardasil. However, I do have serious issues with the way that I have seen Gardasil promoted in both Canada and the United States. Mainstream news has framed Gardasil as a “magic bullet” for HPV and cervical cancer prevention, favoring mass-vaccination programs and underplaying non-vaccine related alternatives to for prevention. Most notably, the arguments have failed to appreciate the historical success associated with pap screening for cervical cancer which, if ignored, could potentially cause a decline in screening rates in the future.

Perhaps Gardasil will prove to be influential for reducing the prevalence of certain strains of HPV and cervical cancer, but in the presence of safety and efficacy concerns we have to ask ourselves: What if it doesn’t? What if years down the line, after we have vaccinated an entire generation of teenage girls, we find out that the side effects associated with Gardasil outweigh the benefits? Let’s face it, the uncertainty associated with the vaccine and its mass administration to young girls is a large-scale public health experiment.

I have received negative reactions to my views on Gardasil in the past, accused of not being concerned about cervical cancer and not caring about women’s health. Unfortunately, the devastating side effects associated with women’s medical “breakthroughs” remain fresh in my mind and have left me anxious about embracing Gardasil on a large scale. Remember the devastation caused by silicone breast implants, Thalidomide, and hormone replacement therapy? In the wake of such medical disasters I am not saying don’t get vaccinated. What I am advocating for is being aware of vaccine’s potential benefits and risks and making an informed and individual choice whether or not to get yourself or your daughter vaccinated. And, of course, don't skimp on regular pap smears.