Japan’s Ongoing Crisis on HPV Vaccination, 2020, Sekine et al

Not posting for the pro- or anti-HPV vaccine argument, but to highlight how possible side-effects, or unrelated health issue, are swept in to the "functional somatic" wastebasket.

Open access, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/8/3/362

 

I can't give a link - I found this info in an article several years ago but have never managed to find it again since, so take this post with a pinch of salt.

I remember reading an article on the web a few years ago discussing the case of a girl who had been given an HPV vaccination and who became seriously ill. (She had previously been completely healthy.) She was treated abominably because she was assumed to be hysterical, attention-seeking, and lying. In the end what helped her was massive doses of thiamine. I know that very low thiamine can lead to very severe illness and permanent brain damage, so I don't know whether the girl recovered completely. What are the chances of a doctor accepting that massive doses of a simple vitamin can help any health condition at all?

 

Uhhhh, that's not how science works. There goes that default explanation again. Same as every other old default explanation in thousands of belief systems.

I had a reaction to a vaccine. I think it was the meningitis one, I was maybe about 13. I had the shot and it was one of the last things in that consult. Then waiting for my mom to finish at the reception desk I was standing and suddenly got very hot and just planked out. I also vomited after and after 1-2 hours I think I was fine. A sudden black out at home is also how the worst of it started for me.

Even in the worst case scenario it would not change my mind that the benefits of vaccination far, far outweigh the risks. But to assert that the risks don't exist, especially by being so lazy and dismissive, is very dangerous and exactly how to cement decades of anti-vaccination dogma.

Maybe it played a role in my health problems, I did have significant fatigue most of my teens. Maybe not. Not knowing because no one is looking is absurd. It's precisely this kind of uncertainty that fuels people's distrust, not just because they are afraid for their health, but because trust lost is very hard to regain and there is no better way to lose people's trust by saying complete BS. And this is how an entire field of science loses the trust of people.

 

It was annoying being just too old for the HPV vaccine when it was brought in here, and the reasons the GP gave to justify it seemed rubbish. And they keep finding out new ways that HPVs can cause problems!