Al Jahom prompted me to comment on the tediously predictable tabloid and beeb coverage of the young girl who died subsequent to receiving the last of her three HPV vaccinations. I spammed his comment thread accordingly, but here is my reckon:
Until the coroner comes back and tells us that a reaction to the vaccine killed her, there is about as much correlative evidence for saying it was her breakfast that did it, because she died after she ate it. So we should wait and see what he says before we go nuts, MMR-scare fashion.
That said, from the sound of it something happened shortly after vaccination took place, and it is feasible that it was a vaccine reaction. The official guidelines have the rate of adverse (normally allergic) effects to the vaccine at about 1 in a million (which would figure, since there have been about 1.5million girls who've been vaccinated so far). For comparison; Penicillin causes serious reactions in 1 in 100000.
This all remeniscent of the case of Anna Duncan who died after her MMR vaccination a few years ago. The Daily Hate were all over it like a cheap suit.
Post mortem revealed the child had a severe case of chicken pox, with complications. Did the Mail ever apologise for scaring thousands of parents away from getting MMR for their kids? Did they bollocks.
And lo, just as the Beeb and the Guardian are reporting that the jab probably didn't cause her death and that she had "serious underlying medical issues", the whole vaccine programme has turned into a gangfuck.
Way to fucking go, tabloids. It doesn't matter what the long-term damage is so long as you shift your grimy, foetid rag to the masses.
I was going to write something more detailed, but the Coroner hasn't told us anything yet, so we're all pissing in the wind. And besides, the LayScientist has covered this brilliantly.
Update Al Jahom, in a break from being reactionary, has linked to this very well written piece in the Times which you all need to read.
Further Update: here's Malcolm Coles chronicling how the various tabloids have conducted their shabby selves.
5 comments:
One school in North East Lincolnshire has opted to postpone the jabs 'while they reassure parents', the council said.
If they can get in before the tabloids do...
Bastards.
Take-up will be shot to shit for the foreseeable.
For fuck's sake.
Here's a thought, though...
Cervical cancer caused by HPV usually occurs in late 20s, early 30s.
How long does this vaccine last? Not 10 years, I'll bet.
So unless it's repeated periodically, what's the point in giving it to 13 year old girls?
Unknown; hasn't been around that long.
However whilst the cancer is prevalent among the older crowd, the HPV virus itself is spread primarily (I think) amongst those dirty teenagers. So a vaccine with ten year effectiveness would go a long way towards eradicating the virus in the general population, with hopefully knock-on improvements in cervical cancer occurrence later in life.
Thanks for the link. Could you also link to the relevant NHS page? I'm trying to get as many people as possible to so we can get sensible advice into Google's top results.
I explain more here: http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/cervical-cancer-jab-please-hel/
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