I’ve been reading a lot about the HPV (Human Papillomavirus) vaccine and the risk of serious side effects and even death. I thought I would seek out the numbers and put them in context. Especially given headlines claiming the HPV jab is “as deadly as the cancer” it seeks to prevent.
A note about the UK. These are the figures for Gardasil, the vaccine used in the US. In the UK, the dominant vaccine is Cervarix. For which I have no figures. Ben Goldacre explores some important points around Cervarix. Worth reading.
(You can explore my data here. I’ve put the data on three separate sheets inside the spreadsheet. Here are the original source documents from the US Centre Of Disease Control).
If you have any figures on Cervarix or any other facts and sources that can add to this diagram, please get in touch. Thanks!
If you’re looking for information on HPV, Cervical Cancer and immunisation, try these links
: The NHS page on the cervical cancer jab
: General info on immunisation, including HPV
Updates
UPDATE 1: I’ve been asked to include the other side of the Gardasil story which is represented by The National Vaccine Information Centre (www.nvic.org) – which is a nonprofit, non-medical organization founded by parents of vaccine-injured children.
In contrast to the Centre For Disease Control, the NVIC are strongly anti Gardasil. As evidence, they cite the case reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. It tracks adverse side-effects of vaccinations across the US. Reporting is voluntary. Studies say it only catches around 10% of side-effects (source: LA Times). Though it’s fair to expect a higher capture rate for deaths.
On that database, the NVIC count 29 Gardasil-associated deaths. I’ve been through the database and pulled out the case reports on those deaths so you can read them for yourself. Download them here.
For extra info, the NY Times has an excellent article about HPV Vaccines here, exploring several perspectives.
UPDATE 2: A few people questioned how I calculated the theoretical odds for dying from Gardasil, as the numbers don’t seem to match. Yup, fair enough. I wasn’t really clear about that. Essentially, the numbers at the top of the image (20,400,000 doses etc) are not used to calculate the odds. Instead, the odds are calculated using the National Safety Council’s method. That is:
population of United States / number of deaths per year
That gives the one year risk rate. Then if you divide that number again by the average US lifespan (77.8 years) you get the lifetime risk. See the risk chart here.
UPDATE 3 I didn’t factor for the fact that women receive up to 3 jabs of Gardasil. So the 20 million doses figures does not necessarily equate to number of people receiving the vaccine. Changing the maths a bit (to assume an average of 2 jabs per person) has altered the numbers slightly on the graph. (Percentage of side effects 0.05% rises to 0.1%. Percentage of serious side effects 0.003% to 0.007%. And so on). Thanks to A for that correction.
Explore the data In this Google doc
80 Comments
J Thomson wrote: “Chances of dying of cervical cancer if you don’t smoke and practice abstinence/fidelity: 0″
Until you clone me a genetically engineered, smarter, wiser, more rational, more consistent, and more iron-willed human, you can’t say this.
You have the factor in the likelihood that an attempt at abstinence/fidelity will fail, through poor judgment or incomplete information, or someone cheating or lying, or outright rape, in the same way you factor in the likelihood the vaccine might fail to provide immunity in some people, or the likelihood that the vaccine won’t protect from all strains of HPV, etc.
so, if the 3 shots do not equal one dose, then these are the risks for each shot? also, how does this compare to other vaccines?
Great job – it’s unfortunate you have some many nut jobs coming out of the woodwork and trying to rip you a knew one posting a bunch of information without links to the sources.
People not vaccinating their children is becoming a huge problem. In 2005, there was a rubella outbreak at a Norwich, Ont. religious school where many students were not vaccinated. More than 220 people contracted the disease, including a number of pregnant women whose unborn children were put at risk of birth defects. The outbreak of the disease—also known as German measles—was believed to have originated with a Dutch visitor during a time when the Netherlands had been battling rubella for eight months. Rubella is a highly contagious virus that can cause such symptoms as fever, headaches and joint pain in children. The disease can hit adults even harder, and poses the greatest health risk to pregnant women. Miscarriage is common, while the threat of congenital rubella syndrome hangs over women infected early in the fetus’ development. Babies born with the condition can be deaf or blind, or suffer from cognitive disabilities or damaged hearts.
I recall in our local area the same people who didn’t get their kids vaccinated brought them while infected to a public pool exposing I *believe* nine woman to the virus.
Unbelievable.
I google’d for the back story information: Ont. rubella outbreak described as ‘God’s Will’ <– CRAZY and a more recent article that references the outbreak – Outbreak threat from vaccine dodgers
um, Should one _focus_ on the area or the radius?
Please do another one of these for the H1N1 Swine flu vaccine when you get a chance.
And to some of the posters here – the lack of trust people have for drug companies and the government is well founded and reasonable, so try not to go off all high and mighty when confronted with honest questions and concerns. Most folks in the health care industry really are trying their best to do the right thing, but because of past bad behavior of their colleagues they rightfully have to struggle to convince the public that they really are doing the right thing now.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/
THANK YOU!
I’m a cervical cancer survivor (17 years this September)
I was only 31 when diagnosed.
Mine was not caused by HPV, however I vaccinated my only daughter and would vaccinate my son if there was a male vaccine.
Thank you for putting the numbers out there.
My close friend came down with severe allergic arthritis within a few weeks of receiving the Gardasil vaccine. After a year of recovery, she is mostly functional again, although she has lingering memory issues and occasional recurrent pain. Her friend is still bed-bound, and nearly completely debilitated after receiving the vaccine. Was the vaccine causative, or coincident, with the autoimmune issues? I suspect that the adverse events reporting system is not equipped to deal with reports like these.
Well, a vaccine prevents you from getting cervical cancer, while a pap smear only tells you once you have it (or dysplasia). Personally, I’d rather not get it at all. I’m not so much a fan of invasive surgical procedures where they hack out parts of my cervix. Also, with the vaccine and the DNA testing of HPV, women could personalize their own healthcare schedule by tailoring their need for pap smears based on their specific circumstances. The pap smear is a physically uncomfortable procedure, and for some women it’s emotionally draining as well. Women who have the vaccine, and are allowed to get regular HPV-DNA tests do not need to have a pap smear done annually, and it can be pushed as long as every 3 years or more.
When men voluntarily spread their legs, allow cold metal instruments to be inserted, then opened wider to allow a stranger with rubber gloves on to peer inside, scrape the insides with a long Q-tip, then insert their fingers and press outwards on the abdominal cavity, and they do this every year faithfully for their entire adult lives, that’s when I’ll be more willing to listen to them when they casually suggest that an annual screening that tells you after the fact that you have cancer is preferable to a 3-time shot. I’ll still pass and take the shot, but at least I’d be willing to listen.
Also, the FDA requires at least 7 years of testing before even considering the approval, so it’s not like a bunch of scientists woke up in August of this year and said “hey, how about we sell them some of this stuff I whipped up in the lab last night? I’m pretty sure it’s safe”.
HPV is also the second-leading cause of head and throat cancers, behind smoking. This affects men and women. HPV is also responsible for some anal and penile cancers, which affect men. Since men do not get screened as often as women do, and since people in general do not get oral screenings as often as women get pap smears, although the cancer rate is lower than cervical cancer, the mortality rate for these other cancers is much higher than cervical cancer.
And the comment about remaining abstinent gives a 0 percent chance of catching it … STDs are not a punishment for immoral behaviour, and that kind of suggestions implies you think it is. As an atheist, I’m appalled to think that anyone would even hint that we should not research and utilize a method of reducing/eliminating suffering and death of another human being simply because *some* people do not agree with that person’s behaviour. I have a much higher regard for the value of human life than that.
Everyone deserves a chance at a happy and healthy life, and life-saving, life-prolonging, and life-enhancing measures should be made available to all, regardless of income, race, religion, or even personal life choices. You, sir (or ma’am, I didn’t check for gender), should be ashamed of yourself for implying that people who choose to have a sexual relationship don’t deserve the chance to prevent cancer.
I’ll skip the part where it’s a completely bullshit premise to begin with, several people have already commented on that. Then there’s the part where we can’t predict which of our teenagers will become adults with low-income and no health insurance or access to regular screenings. So rather than impart upon them the wisdom of regular checkups only to have them be poor as adults and have no means of acting on that sage advice, how about we give them a little preventative defenses instead? That way everyone has a chance, even the poor people.
It would be a wonderful world if we could be guaranteed that everyone else had as high standards as you do. Odds of a partner having a fling are pretty high in today’s world though, so one’s personal fidelity means nothing.
@J Thomson re:
Chances of dying of cervical cancer if you don’t smoke and practice abstinence/fidelity: 0
Chances of dying from the vaccine if you don’t take it: 0
Seems like a no brainer.
@ella But the chances of keeping your daughter abstinent approach 0% and the harder you try, the closer to 0% become the odds. That is how teenage girls work, sorry.
Unless someone decides to rape you or your husband decides to cheat on you.
I have a question. You have the odds of dying from cervical cancer at 500:1. Is that 500:1 that you would die from the types that are caused by HPV strains that Gardasil protects against?
What about the 70% of women in the study that I participated in at KU that cleared the virus from their body naturally?? Since I have some immunity to the virus, do I need the vaccine now? No one knows.
Unfortunately, we (scientists, including myself) do not know enough about the immune system or viruses. There is a risk of vaccination, there is a risk of NOT vaccinating. When others do not vaccinate, they put my kids at risk. But, did my son suffer ill effects from his vaccinations? Would he have had the same neurological dysfunction had he not received his shots? Would he have suffered the same fate from a serious case of the measles?
All I can do is my best, with my family and my research as a scientist.
A big problem with this info is that many cases of side effects never get reported. At my daughter’s pediatrician’s office I was told that they don’t have to report anything. It’s only ‘recommended.’ So what incentive would MDs have to report side effects?
How many cases are out there that no one is reporting? There is absolutely no incentive for anyone to report side effects, not for doctors, certainly not for the manufacturers. Their profits are directly dependent on the vaccine being safe.
As long as vaccines are related to big $$ for large corporations, we’ll never see the full picture.
Agree that this is awesome and that you need to do one for the swine flu vaccine!
m
MMR and autism is another controversial (and incredibly misunderstood) causal assumption. A similar graph for those odds/chances would also be extremely helpful. Thanks for your efforts, great resource.
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2006, about 9,710 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and about 3,700 women will die from the disease.
More than twice as many African-American women die from cervical cancer as Caucasian women. Hispanic and Native-American women have higher rates of the disease than Caucasian women. Cervical cancer rates also are rising among Vietnamese women. The highest rate of cervical cancer is in underdeveloped countries.
Both incidence and deaths from cervical cancer have declined markedly over the last several decades, due to more frequent detection of pre-invasive and cancerous lesions of the cervix from increased Pap screening.
The five-year survival rate for early invasive cancer of the cervix is 92 percent. The overall five-year survival rate (for all stages combined) is about 73 percent. For pre-invasive cervical cancer, the five-year survival rate is nearly 100 percent.
The majority of cervical cancers develop through a series of gradual, well-defined precancerous lesions. During this usually lengthy process, the abnormal tissue can often be detected by the Pap test and treated.
Pap tests, like other early detection tests, are not 100 percent accurate. Though not infallible, when performed properly, the Pap smear detects a significant majority of cervical cancers — usually in the early stages when the likelihood of a cure is the greatest, according to the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.
Source: National Women’s Health Center
if you ever create any more of these for health related issues, i’d love to blow them up and hang them in my office for my patients.
This is slightly misleading, in that the vaccine hasn’t been out for very long. It takes many years to fully understand the effects to medications on the population at large. Risks of getting hit by a car, etc, however, are well understood and can be taken at face value. I’d be careful about what you present so authoritatively, as people automatically think ‘oh well if it doesn’t instantly kill me then it must be ok!’. Its useful to understand the short-term risks, but it must be labelled as such.
VAERS is a horrible reference. It simple takes things that happen after a vaccine. It in no way determines causation. It is not scientific, and the reports have no context.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=98
The focus of injuries related to the administration of vaccines vs. the illness the vaccines can prevent is misplaced. There is substantial data to support disease prevention through vaccines, and very little (if any) supportive data about injury received from vaccine administration. Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) can cause (for example) sterility, blindness and death and the vaccine definitively causes…? This is a compelling article for the HPV vaccine.
Too bad the information is misleading. It says 24,000,000 doses distributed NOT administered. Plus the percentage of people administered the vax is not being properly equated to how many people get cervical cancer FROM HPV. They should have taken the number of how many people get HPV (which is extremely high) and how many subsequently get cervical cancer from HPV, then take the number of deaths from cervical cancer, as a result of HPV, as the percentage, THEN match that to the number of vaccinated and the number of vaccine side effects and deaths. Totally different story. Gardisil only protects against 4 of the over 100 strains of HPV. So with the tiny bit of “assumed” protection it offers to HPV viruses that have a small chance of causing cervical cancer, the risk enormously outweighs the benefits. This is absurd. This illustration looks like a good bit of propaganda for the people that don’t think.
But isn’t it true that most of us already have these viruses? I heard something like 94% of us have multiple strains of HPV, several of which are associated wiht cancer. So do you have data on the number of people to get the vaccine and get cervical cancer anyway? I think that would change the picture.
Why on earth are only teenagers being given the vaccine in the UK?? it seems entirely unfair
Why not add this to your visualization:
Journalist John Carreyrou, quoting from FDA and Merck presentations, recently reported that
“in clinical trials, 361 of 8,817 women who received at least one shot of Gardasil went on to
develop precancerous lesions on their cervixes within three years of vaccination, just 14%
fewer than in a placebo control group.”
Here’s some more facts: Gardisil Researcher Drops A Bombshell http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt#at You should be embarrassed by this “chart”!
I just get so disgusted with “the double standard”. Its okay to take a chance with my girls’ future health, but “let’s wait and see” if it effects the little boy gonads! Screw all of you doctors who just want the referral fee anyway. You’re more dangerous than the possible HPV! I’m NOT giving it to my girls and I’m urging them NOT to have sex. BUT, if it might not be safe for boys, IT MIGHT NOT BE SAFE for girls!
I can say it depends on what vaccine you are talking about. the flu and swine flu vaccine are nearly completely useless. the levels in those vaccines range anywhere from 10-25 mcg of mercury. that’s 100-250 times what the environmental protection agency considers healthy for human beings. doctors can’t even promise your safely when giving you the vaccine.
I waited to get my Daughter the vaccine. I am an RN and give it to sooo many girls all the time. I still waited. Then a friend of the family was raped, (20 years old) and within a couple of months had the beginning of HPV Cervical Cancer. My daughter got the vaccine the next week. YOU NEVER KNOW!
i have a question. did the HPV vaccine pass the clinical trials then? the information above is very confusing..
can you provide more background information and explain the advantages and disadvantages of receiving the vaccine?
should girls be given the HPV vaccine? What is everyones opinion?
XD
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