This might be the worst thing you could tell a young woman who’s received the Gardasil vaccine

Ignorance is not bliss. Not even close. Ignore potential danger, and bliss does not follow.

Virtually all drugs have one type of danger — adverse side effects. But Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, has an additional type — misinformation.

That’s why nobody should EVER tell a young woman who’s received this vaccine that she’s blissfully free of cervical cancer danger.

You might as well send her off to go dance in a minefield.

Ka-BOOM!

Recently, I told you about a new Gardasil study. Supposedly, it puts parents’ fears to rest.

Here’s how the “fear” thinking goes… Girls get the vaccine. Doctors tell them it protects against sexually transmitted HPV. Released from HPV fear, the girls become promiscuous.

But the flaw in the study is glaring. Researchers examined sexual activity among the LEAST sexually active age groups.

Hmmm. Do you think that “flaw” might have been intentional? It certainly produced Gardasil-friendly results.

But even though this is a rubber-stamp study, it bugs Lindsay Abrams. Writing in The Atlantic magazine, Abrams is irritated that such a study is even necessary. The article’s headline sums up her take on the vaccine…

“Can We Just Vaccinate Our Kids Against HPV Already?”

So come ON! Let’s line up all 6th-grade girls and boys and get them vaccinated!

Abrams totally buys the “fear” study results. She says the vaccine doesn’t turn girls into “sex maniacs.” AND, she adds, “It protects from cancer.”

Then she goes one better. She states that the “real comfort” should come from knowing that when vaccinated girls grow up, “they’ll have one less thing to be threatened by.”

Pure hogwash.

More importantly, that’s a reckless message.

Gardasil is not a cancer shot. Period. It’s supposed to protect against some strains of HPV. In other words, a girl can get the vaccine and still get cervical cancer.

But if you tell her she has “one less thing to be threatened by,” she might feel it’s not necessary to get an annual Pap smear. And as I’ve mentioned many times, that’s the ONE guaranteed way to reduce cervical cancer deaths.

A pap smear reveals cervical cancer it the earliest stage when it’s least dangerous and highly treatable. If a woman passes on the Pap smear because she believes she has some kind of a cervical cancer shield, she literally puts her life at risk.

Abrams calls parents “delusional” if they imagine their daughters as perpetually untouched. Abrams is just as delusional if she thinks Gardasil is a risk-free miracle vaccine that defeats cervical cancer.

Sources:
“Can We Just Vaccinate Our Kids Against HPV Already?” Lindsay Abrams, The Atlantic, 10/15/12, theatlantic.com

“Sexual Activity–Related Outcomes After Human Papillomavirus Vaccination of 11- to 12-Year-Olds” Pediatrics, Published online ahead of print, 10/15/12, pediatrics.aappublications.org