Girl's death after receiving Cervarix illustrates the difficulties of assessing risks of vaccines

For the record: An earlier version of this story and its headline incorrectly referred to Gardasil. They should have referred to Cervarix, instead.

The death of a 14-year-old British girl hours after she received the Cervarix vaccine that protects against human papilloma virus, the virus that causes cervical cancer, illustrates the problems associated with assessing the risk of vaccines. The problem is particularly acute now because of the unwarranted widespread fears about the supposedly untested vaccine against the pandemic pandemic H1N1 influenza virus.

Though rare, adverse effects can be caused by vaccines, which is why the government has established a program to compensate victims of such events. But adverse events also occur regularly in the absence of vaccination, and the common tendency is to attribute these events to the vaccine, even though there is no physical link. The most common manifestation of this phenomenon involves the people who say the flu vaccine gave them the flu. It didn't. The vaccines contain inactivated viruses that are simply incapable of producing the flu. But a certain percentage of people are going to catch the flu during any given week, and if they catch it before their bodies have had a chance to build up immunity after vaccination, they want to believe the shot caused it.

Health officials are particularly sensitive to the situation among pregnant women, who are at the top of the list for vaccination against swine flu because they have six times the normal risk of developing severe side effects and hospitalization from an infection. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, notes that 15% of pregnant women will suffer a miscarriage. If that miscarriage occurs during the few days after a flu shot, many people will assume the shot caused it. The only way to determine whether that is the case is to do a careful study of the miscarriage rate among women who did not get a flu shot and see whether the rate is higher among those who did. Past studies of seasonal flu vaccines have not shown any increase in miscarriages among women receiving the shot, and there is no reason to think that results with the swine flu shot -- which is, for all practical purposes, nearly identical to the seasonal flu vaccine -- will be different. The same with heart attacks, allergic reactions and other problems vaccine skeptics attribute to the shots.

Because of the concerns about the swine flu vaccine, the government is undertaking an unprecedented surveillance program to check for any potential problems, according to the Associated Press. In addition to normal surveillance programs, a team at Harvard is linking insurance company databases to vaccine registries to check for above-normal rates of adverse events. Johns Hopkins researchers are contacting 100,000 vaccine recipients to check on their health status. And the CDC is preparing take-home cards for vaccinees and asking them to report any problems to the agency.

As for the British girl, it is possible that she died from an adverse reaction to the Cervarix shot. But several other girls at the school Natalie Morton attended in Coventry were also sent home because they felt unwell after receiving the vaccine. That suggests that something else in their environment was at fault. But officials have quarantined the batch of vaccine used at the school, and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.

-- Thomas H. Maugh II

Comments

[Vaccinosis]

You write: "As for the British girl, it is possible that she died from an adverse reaction to the Cervarix shot. But several other girls at the school Natalie Morton attended in Coventry were also sent home because they felt unwell after receiving the vaccine. That suggests that something else in their environment was at fault."

No, it suggests the vaccine was at fault. That's the most likely explanation. If it was something in the environment, wouldn't everyone be affected? Even those who did not get the shot?

[Stever Robbin]

The logic employed by Thomas H. Maugh II is faulty and dangerous.

He states that "...several other girls at the school Natalie Morton attended in Coventry were also sent home because they felt unwell after receiving the vaccine. That suggests that something else in their environment was at fault..."

Such poor cause and effect logic speaks volumes about Mr. Maugh and his inability to use such logic. Anyone could easily see that his data strongly suggest the vaccine to be the cause and the illness to be the effect.

[revgen]

While, you're obviously biased towards vaccine companies, at least you give us a chance to respond.

I agree with the previous poster's response. It's quite obvious that something is wrong with the vaccine until you can prove otherwise. It's the most plausible answer.

With proper diet, excersize, and remedies, people can built up their own immune to systems to fight off viruses and disease without vaccines.

[JH]

While I agree that it does seem as though logic would say it was the vaccine that caused the illness at that school... You failed to mention in the article if there were students that did not get the vaccine that were also sent home ill.

It could be environmental if others were also ill. If it was only girls that got the vaccine, it could be a bad batch. Sometimes when science is afoot the people element screws it up and something unwanted gets in... ta da bad batch.

Though I do agree with the previous posts whole-heartedly that the way this is written and that you mention no other students getting ill then say it was environmental makes you look very biased. It reads as though a vaccine company was using spin not a reporter dispersing information to the public.

[Nikki]

Unfortunately, this article only addresses people who fear getting the flu because of the flu shot or having an immediate adverse reaction. It does not address this vaccine's ingredients (which include mercury & aluminum) and it's possible long-term adverse effects.

This was a rather poorly written article that barely touches upon any of the issues surrounding these & other vaccines.

I'm pregnant & I am refusing the swine flu vaccine. Not because I fear it will cause miscarriage, but because I fear it could cause developmental & other severe health issues farther down the line. It's little tidbits like this that scare me: "The US government signed a document in June making US federal officials and all vaccine manufacturers immune from any legal liability if its citizens suffered adverse reactions to the H1N1 virus." Already, they're covering their butts. Hmm.

And then there's the vaccine in 1976, also approved by the FDA:
"In 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it “Toxic Vaccine Syndrome” because that would be too informative.)"

[Fuzzy Logic]

One girl dies after receiving an injection of Cervarix. Here are the possibilities:
1. The vaccine directly contributed to the death.
2. She died of a separate condition unrelated to the vaccine, but it happened to be on that day.

Her classmates reported feeling unusual symptoms after receiving the same injection. Here are the possibilities:
1. The symptoms are directly attributable to the vaccine.
2. Mass hysteria. One girl reports something, other people will report things, too, even if they're dissimilar to the first problem.

Here are the facts we need:
How did the first girl die? Was it shock? Fever? Acute
allergy?
And what were the other girls' reported symptoms. Were they the same as the deceased girl? How severe were they?

Just some things to consider before you jump to conclusions.

[Rogue Epidemiologist]

revgen said, "With proper diet, excersize, and remedies, people can built up their own immune to systems to fight off viruses and disease without vaccines."

Hey revgen, are you willing to test that against rabies?

[Andrew]

The headline, that this case "illustrates the problems associated with assessing the risk of vaccines", implies that risk assessment of vaccines is poor. This is not true, and doesn't seem to be what the writer intended, since he conveys that the risks are well-understood by experts but that there is a "common tendency" to conflate coincidental events and cause.

This item "illustrates the problems associated" with reporting on vaccines using imprecise language. The comments by Vaccinosis and others suggest that this item uses confusing language in reporting its primary news event.

Coverage by the BBC emphasizes the low rate of adverse reactions to the vaccine, so that it would be a statistical anomaly to see a number of reactions at one school. It's easy to see how, without that information, readers are confused by what they see as faulty logic.

The BBC also uses more precise language in reporting that the quarantine was a "precautionary measure", that "no link" can be established until the investigation is completed, and that "it is possible" that the timing of the death was pure coincidence.

The copy-editing mistakes of an extra "pandemic" in the first paragraph, as well as the factual error as to which vaccine was involved, suggest that this isn't a news piece at all, but just a blog. Maybe links to hard news coverage of this story would help.

Finally, the link from the latimes.com home page still reads: "Gardasil death shows difficulties of assessing vaccine risks".

[Swan]

After taking the flu shot, my husband almost died from Guillian Barre Syndrome, a disease that leaves you paralyzed. He is suffering from what the government wants you to believe is a "rare" side effect from the flu vaccine.

If my husband would have died, they were going to rule it was from stroke or organ failure. Instead he spent two week unconscious and four more weeks just to stand up. There is no definitive test, so GBS can only be diagnosed by watching the regression of the disease - meaning you have to live. Many die, however, from total or partial paralysis, and are simply ruled death by stroke or organ failure, which was my husband's diagnosis for over a week until his paralysis began to regress downward.

Its no wonder that GBS may be underreported.

No one compensated us for the six weeks of hospitalization, which has almost bankrupted us. The manufacturers and government have been given immunity. Big mistake - there is no incentive to make the shot safer or keep bad products from the public. Doctors,to protect their liability, may hesitate to report Guillian Barre. My guess is, the government will make the diagnosis even harder.

Many who have taken the flu shot say they get the flu anyway. With government immunity why should the vaccine manufacturers and the government care if it did not work or caused death? And with so many underskilled and underexperienced giving the flu vaccine, what kind of quality do you expect?

After what happened to my husband, I'd rather take my chance with the Swine Flu with the flu shot.

The Swine Flu vaccine may be the government's greatest health swindle.

[Swan]

This article makes the government's flu vaccine, it sound like what it has become. The flu vaccine has become an "assessment of risk"- a scientific and bureaucratic experiment for the medical, pharmaceutical, and political industries. Statistics on death, disability, suffering, and financial ruin from the "side effects" of vaccines for unfortunate victims - reduced to numbers on a page - on the Swine Flu Vaccine Guinea Pigs.

[marc]

this story is a disaster. copy edit please! you all are much better than this!

[P. Revere]

http://www.infowars.com/cervical-cancer-shot-kills-14-year-old-girl/

AFP
September 29, 2009
An urgent investigation was under way on Tuesday after a 14-year-old school girl collapsed and died after being vaccinated against cervical cancer.
The girl, who was named as Natalie Morton, died on Monday shortly after being injected with the Cervarix vaccine at the Blue Coat CofE school in Coventry.
The vaccine, which is made by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, is being administered to schoolgirls as part of a national vaccination programme to protect against the disease.
Health authorities immediately isolated the suspect batch of vaccine which protects against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted virus which is the primary cause of cervical cancer.
“The incident happened shortly after the girl had received her HPV vaccine in the school,” said Dr. Caron Grainger, joint head of public health for the National Health Service (NHS) in Coventry and Coventry City Council.

Wonder how much money the Rockerfeller's and Rothschild's owned Big Pharma drug companie's made off of that vaccination?

[Peter English]

Most sudden deaths in this age group are due to undiagnosed conditions - often congenital (meaning things you were born with) abnormalities of the heart or blood vessels.

In this case, however, the post-mortem examination is reported (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8284517.stm ) as being due to a tumour which had invaded her heart and lungs.

Otherwise fit and healthy young people can often remain remarkably well despite very serious conditions such as this, and sudden death from arrhythmia or haemorrhage without a prior diagnosis is not uncommon in such cases.

It is not impossible that the vaccination, or something around the vaccination, was the last straw that made the death happen when it did. In which case it was probably nothing to do with the content of the syringe per se, but possibly the anxiety about having an injection (teenage girls are notoriously likely to faint at the prospect of having an injection). From what we now know it seems most likely in this case that the death would have happened anyway.

Suggestions that, because the death occurred after having jab, it must have been due to the jab, are ill-informed at best.