Tag: Gardasil

It was inevitable that antivaxxers would claim that COVID-19 vaccines make females infertile

Antivaxxers have been claiming that vaccines cause female infertility for as long as I can remember. So it's not surprising that they are now claiming that COVID-19 vaccines will cause miscarriages or even make women infertile. Their assertion is based on a highly speculative and incredibly unlikely immunologic mechanism. Same as it ever was.

/ December 14, 2020
Gardasil

Death by Gardasil? Not so fast there…

There is a type of "vaccine injury" story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call "death by Gardasil." The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can't help but feel incredible empathy for the parents....

/ February 5, 2018

The claim that Gardasil causes premature ovarian failure: Ideology, not science

It’s amazing how, to antivaccine activists, it just so happens that a vaccine that targets a sexually transmitted virus must also destroy a girl’s ovaries. It must be a coincidence, right?

/ March 7, 2016

HPV Vaccine Safety and Acceptance

The public fight over the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is still raging. The debate partly reflects the underlying logic of health prevention measures, which is essentially a statistical game of risk vs benefit. Unfortunately thrown into the mix are ideological opponents to vaccines who are distorting the facts at every turn. Notice that I said this was a “public” fight, because it...

/ January 13, 2016

How not to report about vaccine safety issues, Toronto Star edition

I remember it well, because several of my readers forwarded it to me not long after it appeared on the website of the Toronto Star: An eye-catching headline proclaiming a “wonder drug’s dark side,” that “wonder drug” being Gardasil, one of two vaccines against the human papilloma virus (HPV) designed to prevent cervical cancer by preventing infection with the HPV virus. The...

/ February 16, 2015

Cunnilingus, Michael Douglas’s Cancer, and the HPV Vaccine

Conservative Christians are calling for banning oral and anal sex between consenting adults, claiming that the practices allow for the spread of disease. Radio host Brian Fischer says that a rise in head, neck and throat cancers “among millennials” is a direct result of the influence of “Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.” He compares oral sex and homosexual sex to drug trafficking,...

/ August 6, 2013

SANE Vax adopts Dr. Hanan Polansky’s “microcompetition” as its own. Hilarity ensues.

One of the hallmarks of science as it has been practiced for the last century or so is that scientists share their discoveries in the peer-reviewed literature, where their fellow scientists can evaluate them, decide if they’re interesting, and then replicate them, usually as a prelude to building upon them. While the system of publication and peer review in science is anything...

/ February 20, 2012

HPV Vaccine for Boys

A recent announcement is likely to generate a lot of controversy. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC has recommended that boys and young men be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV). Previously the guidelines said boys “could” be given the HPV vaccine. Now they have recommended that boys age 11 to 12 “should” be vaccinated, as well as boys age 13...

/ November 22, 2011

Quoth the anti-vaccine group SANE Vax: Beware HPV DNA in Gardasil!

Every so often, there’s a bit of misinformation that starts spreading around the Internet that shows up in enough places that our readers take notice and e-mail us about it. What happens is that these in essence become “requests.” We at SBM are, of course, happy to consider all requests and sometimes will actually take them on, particularly when doing so will...

/ September 8, 2011

The HPV Vaccine (Gardasil) Safety Revisited

Gardasil (qHPV) was licensed in 2006 as a vaccine against four types of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and marketed as, “The first vaccine targeted to prevent cancer.”  From its inception it has been one of the more controversial vaccines.  Some religious groups feared that the reduced threat of a sexually transmitted disease would lead to increased sexual promiscuity.  Other groups were concerned about...

/ September 18, 2009