Cancer jab girl ‘had health problem’
Post mortem results show schoolgirl had a serious underlying medical condition
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Independent Minds
The girl who died on Tuesday after a cervical cancer vaccine had a "serious underlying medical condition", it emerged yesterday.
Dr Caron Grainger, joint director of public health for NHS Coventry said in a statement: "Preliminary post-mortem results have revealed a serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death. We are awaiting further test results which will take some time. However indications are that it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death."
It has not been disclosed whether or not this condition was known before the vaccine was administered.
The trust said it was not suspending the immunisation programme in the city but would "pause" it to prepare medical staff for the inevitable questions from worried parents. The national programme began last year and the vaccine – delivered in three shots over six months – is due to be offered to every 12 or 13-year-old girl in the country, with a catch-up programme for older girls up to 18 which launched this autumn.
A spokesman for NHS Coventry said the trust was "rescheduling" the clinics planned for yesterday and today "to be able to brief our frontline clinicians ... so that they are prepared to handle any enquiries they may get". He added: "We fully expect to resume the programme in the coming days."
Scores of similar tributes were left to the 14-year-old girl, Natalie Morton, who collapsed and died at the school in Coventry after receiving her first cervical cancer jab on Monday as part of the national immunisation programme against the disease.
Julie Roberts, the school's headteacher, said special assemblies were being held to support the children. "We have made provision for counselling and we have a school chaplain for every year. As far as the school is concerned, our thoughts and prayers are with the parents and our first priority has to be the children."
The Department of Health said it was working closely with the NHS and regulatory bodies to investigate the details of the case. "No link can be made between the death and the vaccine until all the facts are known," a spokesman said.
The batch of vaccine from which Natalie was vaccinated had been quarantined "as a purely precautionary measure", he said. The vaccine had passed the "rigorous safety testing" needed for it to be used in the UK and Europe and had a "strong safety record".
The spokesman said: "There is no reason for the campaign to be suspended or interrupted. However, we recognise that minor delays may occur in the next day or so in some areas."
Doctors and medical charities yesterday urged parents not to panic. Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, has been licensed in 95 countries and millions of doses have been given worldwide, including 1.4 million in the UK.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency said there had been 4,657 suspected reactions to Cervarix reported in the UK. It added that it had received 2,137 reports between 14 April 2008 and 23 September this year.
Doctors and the public are encouraged to report any adverse event, however unlikely its connection with the vaccine, so that drug safety experts can examine them for patterns. Most reported reactions turn out to have nothing to do with their supposed cause.
David Elliman, consultant in community child health at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said yesterday: "Since the [Cervarix] vaccine was introduced, its safety has been monitored very carefully. In spite of millions of doses being given, we are not aware of any similar occurrence previously."
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Comments
It costs approx £290 per shot
It is debatable how harmful it is, there have been deaths on the continent, in Germany associated with it.
The question is this an effective and efficient way to reduce mortality from cancer of the cervix in young woman.
Alternatives include
Free condoms, known to protect against a range of sexually transmitted diseases and stop women becoming infected with human papilloma virus, which may or may not cause invasive cervical cancer and is only one of a number of conditions transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse.
Investing in youth centres, apprenticeships and other industry and entertainment for youngsters that are both healthier and more community focused
Could the £420 million so far spent on 1.4 million doses of vaccine been better spent?
Undoubtedly.
Who has benefitted most - the teenage girls who put their lives on the line by accepting the vaccine, or the drug companies and their associated ministers who collect the money?
This is the "Health of the Nation" and in whose interest is a healthy nation?
This money would be better spent improving the quality of the lives of our young people, not putting them at risk and encouraging a false sense of security.
Nothing more, nothing less than installing fear that taking the vaccine will protect young women from developing cancer through sexual activity in their teens. Better that they learn that being sexually active is not inevitable, and they are better advised to protect themselves by being taught sexual health. Why is it that males who are just as vulnerable have not been included in this kind of ' social experiment'? they are just as vulnerable-- but no, lets first make sex more easily available, by giving girls so called protection.
It is all about profits. These damned drug companies who we endow with such power.
Why do you want to prevent women from having the option of being immune to this horrible disease?
Of course the drugs companies want to make profits, so logically it is in their best interests
a) not to kill or damage people
b) to make a vaccine that does what it's expected to, ie. protect against a very nasty killer disease
otherwise there will be no further take up and they will get no money.
Cervical cancer kills thousands of women worldwide every year, there is a reason that all women are called in for smears so regularly, it is very common. A vaccine that can remove this scourge (and save the NHS money for all those smear tests) has got to be a good thing.
Incidentally, the human papilloma virus is so common that you don't necessarily need to have had sex to have been infected with it, it's literally everywhere, and it's very easy to infect oneself after contact with it on surfaces touched by others.
I find it amazing that people can only take the very narrow view that it will "encourage girls to have sex", well, married, monogamous, women get cervical cancer too!! Presumably you don't object to them having sex, don't you think they deserve to be protected by having been vaccinated when they were younger? The whole idea of the vaccine is to catch them before they are likely to have been infected, which means it has to be young girls, there is no point in vaccinating someone who is sexually active, and who is likely to have already come into contact with the virus. It's very basic stuff.
Also, anyone who thinks that preaching abstinence at teens will stop them from bonking each other is living in a dreamworld - which is why the US is in such a state (higher teen pregnancies, higher STD rates) compared to nations like the Netherlands and Sweden, where sex is openly discussed, and where the average age of a first sexual experience is much higher as a result.
francetta: Having known someone with testicular cancer, he would have jumped at the chance of a vaccine to prevent getting it, that comment was crass and insensitive.
In that case, why wouldn't the vaccine be given very early on in life? Why are they waiting 'till the girls are approaching a sexual activity age?
Forcing it at school - ie away from parents - on vulnerable 12 and 13 year old girls is a national disgrace, which should be challenged by all parents.
Turning our young girls into enforced sex objects (slappers for the state), telling them they are entitled to 'have sex' as if it is some mechanistic process which has no emotional consequence is as rotten and devious as the action of any low procurer.
It is a further denigration of our own national indiginous population - in particular our women (What sex discrimination?).
Those who are mainly incomers, are already noted to take more care to keep their daughters clear of such enforced state interference.