Norma Erickson
Activist Post
Last week, multiple news articles reported 44% of American parents
refusing Gardasil or Cervarix for their children. Between 2008 and 2010,
the percentage of parents concerned about the safety of these two
vaccines nearly quadrupled. As of 2010, only 32% of eligible girls were
vaccinated against HPV. What is wrong with this picture?
Excerpts from national news sources, March 18-22, 2013:
- USA Today
The percentage of parents who say they won’t have their teen daughters
vaccinated against the human papillomavirus increases, even though
physicians increasingly recommend the vaccinations. Concerns about
safety and side effects for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine have
increased among parents: 16% cited these fears as the main reason they
did not have their daughters vaccinated in 2010, up from 5% in 2008… - Medpage Today
Parents increasingly say they are worried about the safety of the human
papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and don’t intend to vaccinate their teen
daughters… But there is no similar pattern for two other vaccines aimed
at adolescents… - CNN Health
Concerns of mothers and fathers about the safety of the HPV vaccine
grew each year, from 4.5% in 2008 to 16.4% in 2010… The number of
parents who said they would not vaccinate their children for HPV
increased from 38.9% in 2008 to 43.9% in 2010. The main concern was
safety. - CBS News One of the main reasons parents said they didn’t want their children vaccinated against HPV was because of safety concerns.
- Bloomberg
The number of girls who received either injection (Gardasil or
Cervarix) rose to about one-third in 2010 from 16 percent in 2008… - FiercePharma
A growing share of U.S. parents say they won’t vaccinate their
daughters… And that leaves Merck’s Gardasil and GSK’s Cervarix with a
shrinking market. - The New York Times …suggesting, the need for interventions beyond clinical recommendations like possibly ‘state and federally designed social marketing campaigns’…
Without brushing aside the need to address safety concerns, the
increasing rates of HPV vaccine refusal suggest that widespread
vaccination will require more than marketing campaigns. Medical professionals need to look for ways to tell a better story to parents and teens about HPV, vaccination and cancer. (emphasis added)
Taxpayer funded social marketing campaigns? Look for ways to ‘tell a
better story’ to parents? Who are these people kidding? What happened
to investigative journalism? What happened to fact-finding? What
happened to fair and balanced journalism?
Has no one considered the possibility that the 43.9% of parents refusing this particular vaccine might have some valid concerns?
