The Consensus: The HPV Vaccine Is Safe, There’s No Scientific Debate
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The HPV vaccine was developed to help prevent certain types of cancer. Over 80 million doses have been administered, with multiple agencies and studies showing unequivocally that the vaccine is safe. Adverse events, although rare, still happen – so ask your health professional. This consensus is based on 11 experts answers from this question: Is the HPV vaccine safe?
What is HPV?
HPV stands for human papillomavirus. Genital HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection that usually causes no symptoms and goes away by itself, but can sometimes cause serious illness. It can cause cancers, including cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, penis and anus, and some head and neck cancers. Some types can also cause genital warts. Two types of HPV – 16 and 18 – cause up to 80% of the cervical cancers in women and up to 90% of HPV-related cancers in men.
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What’s the HPV Vaccine?
A vaccine was developed called Gardasil to protect against HPV-16 and 18 and was originally approved by the US FDA in 2006 for use in girls between 9-26. This has been expanded for boys and women aged up to 45 years old with a number of other HPV types now being protected.
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What’s the Science vs Hype?
There’s been a number of high-profile anti-vaccination documentaries, while prominent celebrities continue to make claims on the dangers of the HPV vaccine. Robert F Kennedy Jnr for example, wrote recently that the safety record of the HPV vaccine is “nothing short of disasterous”.
To help, we asked scientists around the world and so far we’ve had 100% of experts agree that the HPV is safe. Here’s a summary of what they know.
The safety of HPV vaccination has been widely and closely monitored by multiple systems and agencies. There have been several very large-scale studies that have shown no differences in serious adverse events (including deaths) between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons. One study from Denmark and Sweden, for instance, compared over 3 million unvaccinated females to almost 800,000 vaccinated females and failed to find any differences in rates of multiple sclerosis or other demyelinating diseases (which some people falsely claim is caused by the vaccine).
“Over 80 million doses of the vaccine have been administered around the world and safety has been closely monitored by a number of organisations,” explained University College London cancer researcher Jo Waller. “All have concluded that the HPV vaccine is safe.”
Gregory D. Zimet, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine noted that, though it’s impossible to eliminate all risks pertaining to vaccines, they’re still overwhelmingly safe. “HPV vaccination is not 100% safe, but no activity in life is 100% safe, even getting out of bed in the morning. However, we can say with 100% certainty that getting vaccinated against HPV is safer than not getting vaccinated and that vaccinating a child against HPV is safer, for example, than having a child ride in a car wearing a seatbelt.”
The evidence is clear on its safety record and is best summarized in this 2018 Cochrane Systematic Review.
Let science save more lives. According to the US CDC, the HPV vaccination could potentially prevent 31,200 cases of cancers caused by HPV from developing in the United States alone, each year. So what are you waiting for, ask you doctor about it – particularly if you have teenagers.
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