HPV Vaccine

I wish they had more vaccines when I was younger. I had chicken pox twice, and in my 40's got shingles. Now they have a vaccine for it. I finally got my mother to get the vaccine. I am left with permanent neurologic damage to my right leg from shingles. I had a temp of 105.3 with shingles, a few seizures, and my sacrum to my posterior knee were coverd with lesions. That cleared in a few weeks, but I was left with foot drop and neuropathy that is permanent (it feels like a herniated disc).

Wish there had been a vaccine.

When they have a vaccine for H1 N1, I am getting it. I had H1 N1 and almost died. Thank god for intubation. less

All vaccines have risks, and newer vaccines can have unknown risks. The question that should be asked is whether the benefit outweighs the risk for the individual patient, which is why talk of making this vaccine a requirement for girls attending public school is so out of line. The vaccine is too new, and while the CDC report of the 27 deaths is worded to sound like "yeah, they died, but . . . " reading it closely shows how many of those deaths are still not adequately explained. Plus that report doesn't address the paralysis cases. HPV isn't something you want, but it can be prevented in other ways, and this vaccine isn't 100% effective against it, and this vaccine has potentially dangerous consequences. Therefore, the choice should be left to the individual, and forcing it on anyone, particularly young girls, is appalling. It's not like an airborne virus that can be easily spread around a school.

I'm trying to keep emotion out of my input here, but after watching a neighbor's daughter fight for her life for months after receiving this vaccine, it's hard to look at statistics and feel like it's worth the risk. The young woman is fine now, but she was very sick for months, and she was not at risk for HPV in the first place.

I'm not comfortable with a government controlled organization having the power to tell women that they will be irresponsible with their bodies, no matter what they say, because they can't be trusted, and therefore they have to be subjected to a different risk for their own protection. And this from the same government that wants to teach abstinence-only birth control in the classroom? What. The. Hell.

Anyway, if you're planning to be with multiple partners and don't plan to use a condom because you prefer other birth control options, and you make the decision for yourself to get this vaccine, with full knowledge of the risks, that's fine. The risks probably are statistically small, as long as the vaccine actually has a benefit for you as a patient.

But for the teenage girl who had no intention of being sexually active with anyone, and understood the importance of safe sex and used that knowledge to argue her point, and then was bullied into getting the vaccine anyway, and ended up paralyzed for months? That's a horror story, and that's why commercials for that vaccine fill me with rage. Comparisons between this vaccine's risks and the arguments of parents refusing to vaccinate children for deadly airborn viruses also fill me with rage.

If the schools refuse to educate students about sex, birth control, and STDs, then they damn well can back the hell off on vaccinating for one particular STD and using a risky vaccine to do it. less