February 19, 2007
The tone of the debate over whether to make the HPV vaccination mandatory has improved remarkably over the last week. When this controversy first broke most of my e-mail could be called hate mail. People wanted to impeach Governor Perry and called him dictator, King or more unprintable things. The readers of Texans for Texas have expressed very valid concerns that focused on your children.
Controversy over the HPV vaccinations is overshadowing almost everything else at the legislature. There are many valid issues which could cause one to be for or against mandating these vaccines. The Christian Medical Association favors mandatory vaccines with opt out provisions. The Texas Medical Association opposes making the HPV vaccine mandatory largely because they are afraid people will turn against all vaccines.
Even I, who favor mandatory HPV vaccination, am disgusted by the cost of this vaccine. I hope the legislature can probe into how Merck has set its price and negotiate it significantly downward.
In this column I want to focus on one issue only that I feel is being misrepresented in this debate. And that issue is safety. Good parents want to protect their children and certainly don’t want them to be guinea pigs. We all know some drugs can be very dangerous. And we all know that the FDA and CDC make mistakes. It is easy to play on these rational fears.
Here’s my take on the safety of HPV vaccines. I’m not an expert but I think common sense is sufficient here. In the past many vaccines and drugs have proven very dangerous, costing lives and lifelong injury. All of the dangerous drugs have one of three things that make them dangerous.
- They were designed to kill things. The abortion pill RU 486 for example, was designed to kill human life. No one should have been surprised that RU 486 proved to be dangerous for women.
- They are taken frequently, often daily, over a long period of time. Hormone Replacement therapy, Vioxx, almost any drug, including aspirin, can have a major impact on the delicate chemical balance within our bodies.
- They are designed to develop immunity by introducing small doses of a living virus or bacteria into your bloodstream. But not infrequently that small dosage was enough to give us the full-fledged disease we were inoculating against. (Examples are vaccines for Mumps, Measles, Chickenpox and Rubella.
The HPV vaccination falls into none of these categories. It is not inherently toxic. It is not taken frequently enough to impact our body chemistry. It does not contain any living things.
The HPV vaccine is designed to elicit virus-neutralizing antibody responses that prevent initial infection with the HPV types represented in the vaccine. Unlike many vaccines it does not contain live material from the actual disease itself. The last generation of preventive HPV vaccines are based on hollow virus-like particles (VLPs) assembled from recombinant HPV coat proteins.
For these reasons I believe the HPV vaccination to be extremely safe. I would be shocked if it caused one death in ten years. Yet in that same period of time 20,000 teen-aged girls will die from automobile accidents and 30,000 eventually will die from those HPV cancers that would be eliminated by this vaccine. When my daughter reaches sixth grade in four years she will be vaccinated.
A few years ago conservatives were leading the fight to get vaccines approved much faster without the FDA slowing them down. As kids we all wanted to take the polio vaccine even though we knew many people died from taking the vaccine. We understood that everything had risks and we saw a risk not taken as an opportunity lost. If you wanted to spare your daughter of the major sources of risk in her young life she should be prohibited from driving and using a swimming pool. Hopefully you won’t just as you won’t opt out of vaccinations that could save her life.
Many people opposed to the HPV Vaccine do so on the basis of reports from the National Vaccination Information Center. http://www.909shot.com/ When you study this report you will notice they appear to be opposed to all vaccines. Hit the key on their website marked “lawyer referral” and you will get the names of about 20 lawyers who have expertise in suing the makers of different vaccinations. It sure looks to me like a main purpose of this website is client referral. These lawyers all give money to this website.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of this website. But the reality is that families distraught over a medical calamity, such as mine has been, are quick to find someone to blame. In a six-month period NVIC reports 82 reports of reactions (none fatal) to HPV vaccines. While anecdotal evidence has its place, it is not scientific as the great majority of reactions are just unfortunate coincidences. The FDC reports there have been no reactions greater than soreness where the vaccination was given. The NVIC alleges a conspiracy of doctors to violate the law and not report adverse reactions to vaccines. : “many doctors refuse to make a report. It is estimated that only 1-10% of all doctors report a severe health problem which occurs after a drug or vaccine is given to a patient.” If anything I believe doctors would over report adverse reactions as a way of protecting themselves against liability.
Keep in mind that drug companies are the new target rich hunting ground for some trial attorneys. They have replaced tobacco as the favorite place for innovative lawsuits. It is in the interest of these trial attorneys to create a national atmosphere of distrust of drug companies and doctors. This is extremely unfortunate. Vaccinations are incredibly cost effective protectors of public health. Vaccinations against HPV will prove the greatest victory of public health against disease since the polio vaccinations.
Royal Masset is one of a handful of people who built the Republican Party of Texas, Royal continues to serve Texas as a successful political consultant, author and speaker on policy issues.
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