HPV Vaccine, Is It Really Harmful?

which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cervical cancer is considered a preventable disease because it has causative agent called Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). HPV infection was detected in up to 99% of women with squamous cell carcinoma of uterine cervix. Two HPV vaccines are approv­ ed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and pro­ tect against subtypes 16 and 18. The first, GARDASIL ® , was li­ censed in 2006 and is now recommended as a routine vaccina­ tion for girls and women between the ages of 9­26 in the US. The second HPV vaccine, CERVARIX ® , was licensed in 2009. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the intro­ duction of HPV vaccination into national immunization pro­ grams (NIP) where prevention of cervical cancer is a public health priority and the introduction is programmatically feasible. However, until now, there are some doubts about the safety of HPV vaccine. For example, the claim that " HPV vaccines have an impressive safety profile is only supported by highly flawed design of safety trials and is contrary to accumulating evidence from vaccine safety surveillance databases and case reports which continue to link HPV vaccination to serious ad­ verse outcomes (including death and permanent disabilities) ". In June 2013, there were a few reports described as complex re­ gional pain syndrome (CRPS) and other chronic pain following HPV vaccination in Japan. After this issue, the safety of HPV vac­ cine rises to the surface again in Korea. Since the introduction of HPV vaccines in the US, adverse events related to the vaccination have been reported to US Ad­ verse Experience reporting system (VAERS). The most com­ mon events reported were: Syncope (or fainting)–common af­ ter injections. Of the 12,424 reports of adverse events, 772 (6% of all reports) described serious adverse events, including 32 reports of deaths, the remaining 11,652 (93.8%) were classified as non­serious. The 32 death reports were reviewed and there was no common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine. In cases where there was an autopsy, death certificate, or medical records, the cause of death could be explained by factors other than the vaccine. Some causes of death determined to date include diabetes, viral illness, illicit drug use, and heart failure (1). US Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) active surveillance …