She is devoutly Catholic and completely chaste, but that doesn't always make a difference. Rape happens, husbands cheating happens (or husbands carrying a time bomb that they don't even know about from before the marriage). A friend of a friend got a very nasty (and incurable) STD from a husband that she didn't know was into the Midtown bathhouse scene (none of us knew - he hid it VERY well).
Daughter had a heart-to-heart with her pediatrician, who is a fine young man and a very good doctor. He is the protege of our former pediatrician, now deceased, who was the best and wisest doctor I knew. He recommended that she get the vaccine. Unfortunately all vaccines have risks - but some of us remember the days before the polio vaccine when the swimming pools closed and people kept their kids home from school. A boy in my elementary school class was one of the last to be crippled by polio -- his mama didn't get him vaccinated, for whatever reason, and he wore braces for the rest of his life (he was killed in a car wreck when we were in high school).
Comparing Polio with HPV is a bit of a stretch of examples.
Why not compare it to small pox while you are at it.
This vaccine, is not 100% effective, does not stop “cervical cancer”. In fact not one study ever done on it proves it can stop cervical cancer.
What it can do, when it works, is prevent certain types of HPV infections, when it works.
The devil is always in the details.
Yes certain HPV infections if they infect the vagina etc can cause Cancer later in life. However, these are not the only causes of cervical cancer.
There are about 11,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed in the US per year. The 5 year survival rate of cervical cancer is 71%. If detected in the earliest stages, its 5 year survival rate is 92%. With both of these rates increasing annually.
Cervical cancer is also something that generally develops later in life, rarely seen in women under 20 years old and generally are mid life when it develops.
So, knowing your child could be permanently disabled or drop dead from a side effect for vaccine a disease that even if she contracts it, likely will not happen until she’s about 40, and she’ll likely survive by 70-90% or more depending on when its detected, is it worth the risk??
I hope I never have to bury a child, but if I do, I hope I’m hoping they are in their 40s, rather than in their teens.
Honest risk/reward on this vaccine doesn’t equate to a “no brainer” when its properly analyzed.
Let women make up their own minds on this, but don’t think screwing with a 9 year olds autoimmune system, like this vaccine does, doesn’t come with some very searious and real long term risks. Not all reactions will be known for years, there are long term risks especially when given to young girls, that won’t be known for years.