<p>“”“Just following the logic of the findings in one of Emeralkity’s above links, it would seem that there’s a reasonable chance that one could transfer the virus to very young individuals without any sexual contact whatsoever.”“”</p>
<p>Many children have contracted HPV without sexual contact. Babies can get infected in utero if the mother is infected and/or during birth as they pass through the birth canal. While only a small percent develop respiratory papilloma or even genital warts, they most likely will be carrying this virus for their lifetime.</p>
<p>This is a nasty, nasty virus.</p>
<p>Older D volunteered to be in the clinical trial for the HPV vaccination. She’s still particpating in the long term follow-up. (It’s going on 5 years now… and still no problems.)</p>
<p>Younger D was vaccinated as soon as our health insurance provided coverage for the vaccination. She got all 3 shots when she was 16. She’s had no problems either.</p>
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<p>My understanding is that the 16 and 18 strains are also believed to be linked to oral and other cancers, not just cervical.</p>
<p>Check out the VAERS-vaccine adverse event report. 17 deaths are associated with the vaccine. Vaccines need years and years of safety data before you should consider them-at least that’s what the neurologist at CHOP told a PA mom who brought her neurologically disabled daughter to him after her Gardasil Shot. Search YouTube.com Gardasil Reaction.</p>
<p>sccamom - that’s just a tad misleading. They were not able to associate any of the deaths with the vaccine. There were 15 deaths reported between '06 and '08 and they couldn’t get any identifying info on 5 of those. This is out of over 12 million doses. After investigation, they couldn’t link causally any of the deaths to Gardasil. In the testing phase, 10 people died from the Gardisil group and 7 died in the placebo group. According to that, placebos are dangerous too.</p>
<p>Hmmm. D1 didn’t want to do the Gardasil thing until it had been around longer and any long-term effects were known. I agreed, so she has put it off. The previous poster who had difficulty reporting a negative reaction to the vaccine to the CDC is a bit disconcerting, I must admit.</p>
<p>In the past twenty years, I’ve taken three different relatively “new” drugs that were later pulled off the market, and/or had lawsuits brought up against them. I admit I’m gun-shy on it too. Although I can’t directly tie some of the issues I’ve had back to them, it does make me wonder. However, I’ve made it clear to both D’s that BEFORE they decide they are ready to become sexually active that they should get vaccinated (as well as ensuring reliable birth control.) Cancer isn’t something to blow off…nasty, evil disease.</p>
<p>I have my concerns too - D is due her second shot now and she and I have discussed not going forward. However, I don’t like to see misleading info out there. She only has a few days left to get the second shot before school starts and I think she is going ahead with it. The HPV stuff really “creeps her out.”</p>
<p>No one that I’ve known has had any adverse effects.</p>
<p>This is what clinched it for me when my doctor was discussing it with me: I’m going to be a virgin until I get married. But that doesn’t mean my husband will be. Also, there’s always the chance of sexual assault. Should it happen, I want to be as protected as possible.</p>
<p>Plus, my great-grandmother died of cervical cancer. I don’t want to end up with it. I trust my doctor…she wouldn’t have given it to me if she didn’t think it was safe.</p>
<p>It’s taken an awful long time for our health service to even consider introducing it over here - vaccination for 13-15 year old girls has just been approved now. I worry that my younger sister (16 in February) won’t be able to get it, and that if I (24 years old) want to get it then I will have to pay nearly €400 out of a very shallow pocket for something which I see as being quite important to women’s health.</p>