There is a huge amount of misinformation around about vaccinations. It occurs because:

- most people do not understand the details of how scientific research works. In particular, they don't understand the concept of hypothesis, or the language used for discussing whether or not a hypothesis has been disproved. This means that if you cherry-pick particular sentences from scientific literature, you can make it seem like there is not consensus about vaccination, when actually there is.

Another thing that many people don't understand about science is that science is not perfect. There is almost always some research that seems to contradict the consensus. An example is the 1998 study by Wakefield et al that suggested a connection between vaccination and autism. This study was flawed and has been completely discredited by subsequent research. But there are many people out there who don't realise this, and still believe that those results are accurate.

- most people do not understand statistics and risk assessment. Our brains don't do that very well, which makes it hard to make good judgements about such things. Anti-vaccination literature is full of misleading use of statistics. In many cases in the literature I have read (mostly articles linked from posts on this forum), the statistics quoted actually mean the direct opposite of what they are suggested to mean. Most people don't pick up on those flaws in argument, and the authors of the literature don't actually want to clarify them because they would not then actually have an argument to make.

- there is a lot of misinformation about vaccines online. This misleads people into thinking that the vaccines might be more dangerous than the diseases they protect against. Unfortunately, online anyone can claim to be an expert about something, and it can be very difficult to work out whether they actually are or not. You can do a lot of reading online and still draw the wrong conclusions about the risks of vaccinating compared with the risks of not vaccinating.

- and other stuff goes on, of course, but these are, as far as I can tell, the main issues that cause such controversy in what should actually be a really simple decision for parents to make.

Now, someone mentioned chickenpox earlier. Here are some of the facts about chicken pox:

I am quoting an article written by: Richard Lichenstein, MD, Associate Professor, Pediatric Emergency Department, University of Maryland School of Medicine. I believe the figures are taken from the US population. In the abstract he mentions that:

Varicella also accounts for significant morbidity (4000 hospitalizations per year) and mortality (50-100 deaths per year) in otherwise healthy children; moreover, the annual cost of chickenpox has been estimated at $400 million in medical costs and lost wages in the past.
and later on:

In immunocompromised children, such as those with leukemia, mortality rates from varicella have ranged from 7-28%. The case-fatality rate in the general population is 6.7 case per 100,000.

* Morbidity is due to overwhelming viremia, encephalitis, bacterial superinfection, pneumonia, and Reye syndrome (which is associated with aspirin use). Common complications include secondary staphylococcal or streptococcal infections of the skin and upper respiratory tract, including otitis media. Central nervous system complications include aseptic meningitis and Guillain-Barr? syndrome. Other complications include thrombocytopenia, arthritis, hepatitis, and glomerulonephritis.
* In pregnant women, varicella during the first 20 weeks of gestation can lead to multiple congenital anomalies including limb atrophy, neurologic and ocular abnormalities, as well as growth retardation.
* Infants born to women who have varicella 5 days or fewer before delivery or 2 days postpartum may develop disseminated varicella neonatorum. Hemorrhagic lesions of the liver and lungs characterize this potentially fatal disease.
Now, there is no way that the chickenpox vaccine causes that many deaths. I'm not going to say that it doesn't cause any at all, because I don't know. But if it were causing anything like as many deaths per year as the disease, we would all know about it. It would be impossible to hide - it would be all over the news.

So yes, there is a risk associated with having the vaccination. Like any vaccination. But there is a far greater risk associated with not having the vaccination. That's why it's on the schedule. That's the point.


Anyway, I do realise I'm rather off-topic here. Sorry for that. I just don't like to see people being confused by misinformation, so I speak up.


To get on-topic, my daughter will have the vaccine in question (for cervical cancer) when she is old enough (she's only 6 months now). I know it won't protect her completely, but it will protect her more than I am protected, and that's better than nothing at all. She will also, of course, have plenty of information about the dangers (and benefits) of sexual activity, and hopefully we will be able to teach her to make sensible assessments of risk in that regard, by the time she is sexually active.