Simon Harris has strongly urged parents to vaccinate their daughters with the cervical cancer jab, HPV.
Amid a huge drop in the number of girls getting the life-saving vaccine, the Health Minister warned it is ‘very important’ they take up the the State-funded inoculation.
The Health Minister’s intervention is likely to fuel the raging debate over the vaccine. While the World Health Organisation and international studies have shown it is safe, a parents’ pressure group claims the jab caused ‘horrendous adverse effects’ to their daughters.
However doctors are concerned that this campaign will lead to unnecessary deaths from cervical cancer as well as reducing take-up of other vaccines.
Recent years have seen a general falling off of vaccine rates internationally, due to the rise of anti-jab groups across America and Europe.
When asked by the Irish Daily Mail yesterday if the vaccine was safe and if he would recommend it, he replied ‘I do.’ The minister added: ‘And I don’t recommend that on a personal basis, I’m not a clinician, it’s not up to me to decide whether vaccines are safe, but we have very rigorous structures in place in this country in relation to that and I take my lead from the medical advice made available to me from the Chief Medical Officer in the department, and also from expert clinicians working with the likes of the Irish Cancer Society.
‘It’s very important that we see people taking up vaccinations so that we can make sure our young people are looked after.’
The HPV Gardasil vaccine protects girls against four strains of the human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer. It has been administered to girls attending their first year of secondary school since 2010 under a national immunisation programme. So far 220,000 young teenagers have been vaccinated and around 30,000 are eligible for it every year, according to the HSE.
The calls to take up the jab come as figures show that, this year alone, more than 90 Irish women will die from cervical cancer. Another 280 will need intensive treatment, such as surgery, radiotherapy and or chemotherapy. Every year about 300 women in Ireland are diagnosed with cervical cancer. Now the HSE has issued new figures which show that 5,000 fewer girls received the job this year compared to last year.
Last month a hospital consultant, who has seen women in their 20s die from cervical cancer, urged parents to vaccinate their daughters against the preventable disease.
Dr Matt Hewitt, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, based at Cork University Maternity Hospital, told the Mail at the time: ‘I’ve had patients die in front of me from cervical cancer which is a very easily preventable disease. If my cervical cancer practice was eliminated over the next ten years, I would be thrilled by that. I’ve seen women as young as 23 with cervical cancer, that is very unusual, beyond 25 it becomes much more common.
‘I’ve seen women of 26 and 27 die of cervical cancer due to lack of screening, and the screening programme and potentially the vaccine… would obviously prevent deaths in that situation.’
Dr Hewitt said the reported decline in vaccinations ‘may be related to unsubstantiated concerns about HPV vaccine safety, which have no scientific basis.’ The European Medicines Agency published a review of the vaccine before last Christmas and found that evidence does not support a causal link between the human papillomavirus vaccines – either Cervarix or Gardasil -and chronic pain or a second associated condition which affects heart rate and can spark fatigue.
And in December 2015 the World Health Organisation issued a strong statement saying it believed the HPV vaccine was safe. It warned that withdrawing HPV due to scientifically unsubstantiated claims was a far greater risk of causing ‘real harm’.
Nevertheless, one Irish campaign group, Regret (Reaction and Effects of Gardasil Resulting in Extreme Trauma), insists that the HPV vaccine has caused long-term difficulties and chromic pain among children. And some parents have claimed their daughters suffered seizures, fatigue and pain after receiving the jab.
One mother, who claims her daughter suffered ‘horrendous adverse effects’ after getting the shot, has brought a case to the High Court.
Fiona Kirby, a nurse from Westmeath, says her daughter is now disabled to the point that she needs to be cared for on a permanent basis as a result of the jab. She claims more than 100 other girls have also been affected and she wants the licence to be withdrawn pending a full investigation.
By Ferghal Blaney
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