Dear Editor;
There have been many complaints coming forward about the Catholic School Boards in Edmonton and Calgary advising against giving the HPV shot against cervical cancer to young girls. When one thinks of the outcome of the thalidomide project, one ought to start first with considering the question as to whether there should there be reasons for skepticism of the current HPV vaccine plan.
Canadian Family Action Coalition (CFAC) was the first to check out concerns about the HPV vaccine for cervical cancer. It reported, ‘We had read of the harmful effects from this HPV drug --- blindness, paralysis, etc, numbering 2,200 ---- as reported by reputable US agencies such as NVIC, the National Vaccine Information Center (U.S. based).
CFAC found that the new Gardasil vaccine had undergone less than four years of testing, that relatively few girls between the ages of nine to 15 years were involved and that consequently there is no answer about the vaccine’s longterm safety. Some have characterized the vaccination program as a huge Canadian experiment with young schools girls as the guinea pigs and with side effects unknown, e.g. could young girls be rendered sterile at some future time.
Audrey Jensen
Red Deer