"Gardasil never tested in girls under 15 years old" says whistleblower Diane Harper

[BellyBelly]

Not on hand right now don't have much time to find them, but if you google HPV in children you can find stuff like this: Untreated (natural history of) HPV in children

[amy_o]

I was in the age group for the free shots and my GP just sort of went ahead and I didn't read up (stupid!!!) this was very early on when it first hit Australia just after the inventor was named Australian of the year (Much better to have your vaccine out there and on the market instead of being tested and developed safely.... but thats another argument...) After my first shot I ended up in the ED overnight with a horrible reaction. Breathing, balance the works. The only thing they could put it down to was the Gardisl. Obviously I didn't go back for shots 2 and 3 and my reaction had to be reported and blah blah. My point is that I have told all the mums with girls I know that safe sex education and talking about regular pap tests and well woman check is MUCH more useful in my mind than this.

[Janie]

I agree Claire! I think stressing the importance of regular pap tests is so important. I too have had HPV cells removed from my cervix (more than once, it turned into a saga), and I have always been vigilant with my pap smears. BTW, it is not recommended to have the vaccine if you have already had HPV, your specialist was right.

This vaccine is too iffy for me right now, and it worries me that girls who have it will think that they are exempt from cervical cancers and won't have regular (or any) pap smears.

[Arcadia]

Can I just ask also, why are women the only ones being targeting for this vaccine? If HPV is primarily a sexually transmitted disease, then presumable there are boys out there who play a role in transmitting it! Surely if mass vaccination against HPV is the goal, then boys should be targeted also (although I recognise this would double the cost of a 'free' vax program).

There was a great Four-corners episode on 'Catching Cancer' last week, where they looked at diseases that trigger cancer. Anyway, in it the creators of the HPV vax took it to Vanuatu because the population there have a very high rate of cervical cancer linked to the HPV virus (one in eight women are affected).

So...it seems the testing is happpening to human guinea pigs as we speak...