If you have a girl, will you vaccinate her against cancer?

Yes of course. I have no reservations for important, tested vaccines with a good safety profile. I believe I have read that it benefits men also.
vaccines are a risk/reward calculation, if there is little to no reward I may not go for it, for example when giving blood they usually ask me to give plasma. This requires my blood to go into a machine and back in my body….no thanks, I’ll give it the old fashined way.

We vaccinated both our daughters.

I got the vaccine myself and I would recommend it if I had a daughter.

Yes. Without any doubt.

Sure, why not?
But I’d check very good if it’s some new shit that just came out. I’d want to know all the details, if it was tested and 1000% proven to work well. If it was well known to be effective like others vaccines kids are already getting, then it’s ok for me.

Yes !

Not without checking to see if there had been any side effects in the last few years.

@Sneki95, the Gardasil vaccination was introduced in Australia in 2007. It was originally recommended for young women aged 13–28, but I believe that has now been extended to women up to age 46 and since 2013 boys are now vaccinated too. This sheet provides a lot of information about the vaccine.

These are Australian resources so things are probably different in the US. Which country are you in @Sneki95? Is vaccination against HPV not available in your country?

^ I’ve just seen the calendar of compulsory vaccination in Serbia. It says nothing about cancer.

Perhaps they have decided not to offer the vaccination. That’s a pity.

^ Yeah. Cancer is widespread here. It’s quite common. In fact, we’re the #1 in Europe by the number of people that die of cancer. It would be real beneficial to have some help in curing it. But, the state probably has no money to buy the vaccine.

Yes.

Probably. My daughter is an adult now and my doc has never mentioned it. I’ll have to ask my 29 yr. old daughter if it has been mentioned to her by her doc.

I do and I did.

I would.

Most likely I would.

When it first came out I might not have if I’m to be honest. I don’t like drugs or cars when they are newly released.

@Sneki95 It’s a vaccine against HPV (a sexually transmitted virus). The strains of HPV the vaccine prevents have been shown to lead to cervical cancer.

Yes, of course. I chose to get the vaccine as an adult when it became available (why wouldn’t I?). I really don’t understand why only girls are vaccinated against this; it should be given to both boys and girls.

Glad to see it’s unanimous.

Yes , I would. When I split with my ex a few years ago, I tried to get the vaccine myself. But I was too old…

I had both my son and my daughter get HPV vaccine. Silly not to, when you can take steps to keep them from picking up a cancer causing virus.

I declined the vaccine myself, because when I was in my early 20s I was an idiot.

I would. Especially living where I live. It’s the most promiscuous country. Has the highest rate of casual sex. Here, they just rolled out the shot with all of my son’s female classmates. They are 12.

I don’t have a daughter, and I’m not planning on having another child. But I will get the HPV vaccine for my son when he reaches the recommended age. Our current insurance includes coverage for boys, but I’d pay for it out of my own pocket if I had to.

This vaccination is delivered as part of the NHS vaccination programme through secondary schools here. If my daughter was that age I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

@JLeslie Yeah, I read that somewhere yesterday, but I can’t remember where. I know that HPV is connected to cancer. It’s not on the list of available vaccines here, at least I didn’t find it.

^^It doesn’t surprise me that the vaccine isn’t on the schedule in some countries, or not available at all. Some countries are still looking at adverse reactions to determine if the vaccine is ok, and probably some religious countries don’t introduce for religious reasons. I’m guessing on the latter, but we have some religious problems with it here in the US. Maybe expense too, but vaccines tend to be inexpensive.

Yes my older daughter has had it. We will get it for my younger daughter when she is of age.

Yes. My son too! Doesn’t HPV cause throat/mouth/tongue cancer as well?

Um mm different virus I think
I’m not able to look it up at the moment.

@gorillapaws Yes, HPV can cause throat cancers.

Wow . I’ll be doing some reading when I get home.

Farrah Fawcett died from HPV related anal cancer.

Basically, any mucous membrane that has sexual contact is at risk.

A soap opera star had to have part of her tongue removed. She went public about it years ago.

No way I would vaccinate to “prevent” cancer. Prove to me Gardisil prevents cancer.
I don’t like the way the medical profession tells parents, “we’re offering the Gardisil shot” when there are really three shots. I don’t like men being told, “we’ll take a prostate biopsy” when they really take twelve. My dad had the pneumonia vaccine then got pneumonia twice. It’s all a Big Pharma racket. Half truths mixed with lies and a little mercury. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQsVTlMsQrI and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5TnDtGKYw. and. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KklrjbQZ-Ns

HPV, @Aster, is real and they have shown a a connection between having HPV and later in life getting Cancer.
Just ask Michael Douglas HPV from oral sex and tongue cancer.

Vaccinations don’t stop all illnesses only reduce the likelihood of getting an illness, vaccinations are not “silver bullets”.

@Tropical_Willie It’s the “they have shown” part that I ignore. Douglas is rude and crude and no doctor.
I doubt you read all my links. Dr Blaylock doesn’t give vaccinations so he has no reason to make things up .

@Aster, @JLeslie pointed out that Farrah Fawcett’s anal cancer was HPV related. It was very easy to look it up and it is true. It was a horrible way to die and even with all of Farrah Fawcett’s wealth and ability to chase down all the treatments in different countries, she could not save herself.

@Aster “Prove to me Gardisil prevents cancer.”

HPV causes cancer. Gardasil prevents HPV. Therefore, Gardasil prevents cancer. Pretty straightforward, really.

“I don’t like the way the medical profession tells parents, ‘we’re offering the Gardisil shot’ when there are really three shots.”

The number seems pretty irrelevant to me since it has absolutely no effect on anything. Nevertheless, every time my son has been vaccinated, the nurses have been extremely clear about how many shots would be involved. So my experience suggests that your complaint here is groundless.

“I don’t like men being told, ‘we’ll take a prostate biopsy’ when they really take twelve.”

Do you also object to the fact that you get twelve eggs when you buy a single dozen? Because that’s what a dozen is: twelve objects gathered together in one group. So either you have trouble with collective nouns, or you just don’t understand that a biopsy is a single procedure during which one or more samples may be gathered. In either case, it’s your unfamiliarity with how the English language works that’s at fault here, not the explanation given to you by medical professionals.

“My dad had the pneumonia vaccine then got pneumonia twice.”

And sometimes I get wet even though I’m carrying an umbrella. But you know what? I would have gotten a lot wetter without it. No defensive measure is perfect. Especially when it comes to medical conditions like pneumonia or the flu that can be caused by many different things, no single vaccine can guarantee that you will never get any version of it. In such cases, vaccines are designed to protect against the most dangerous and/or most common versions of a disease. So even if your father still got pneumonia, it’s overwhelmingly likely that he ended up with a milder case than he would have otherwise.

“It’s all a Big Pharma racket. Half truths mixed with lies and a little mercury.”

First of all, thimerosal is not used in vaccines anymore except as a preservative in multi-dose vials of influenza vaccine. As noted by the FDA:

“At present, all routinely recommended vaccines for U.S. infants are available only as thimerosal-free formulations or contain only trace amounts of thimerosal (≤1 micrograms of mercury per dose), with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Inactivated influenza vaccine for pediatric use is available in a thimerosal-preservative containing formulation and in formulations that contain either no thimerosal or only a trace of thimerosal, but the latter is in more limited supply.”

So at best, you have an argument against the flu vaccine (and no other vaccines). But you don’t even have that because there is no reason to be concerned about the amount or type of mercury in those versions of the flu vaccine that contain thimerosal (and thus contain mercury). Chemical composition matters. Ethyl alcohol and methyl alcohol contain the exact same elements, for example, though in different amounts and in a different arrangement. One gets you drunk when ingested; the other kills you.

Similarly, there’s a huge difference between methyl mercury and ethyl mercury. All of the worries about mercury toxicity are based on studies of methyl mercury. But thimerosal does not contain methyl mercury. It contains ethyl mercury, which is much less dangerous and is metabolized far more quickly. In short, the entire argument against vaccines is based on worries about thimerosal (which isn’t even in most vaccines), and the entire argument against thimerosal is based on scientific illiteracy.

I’m actually more annoyed females aren’t checked for HPV in their mouth or anus. That bothers me more than someone not getting the vaccine.

It’s a reasonable assumption that the HPV vaccine prevents cancer as it prevents the virulent forms of HPV. However it’s not been around long enough to follow the epidemiology.

In terms of the “pneumonia vaccine”, there is no “pneumonia vaccine”. There is a vaccine against pneumococcus, a common pathogen that can cause pneumonia. But someone can get pneumonia from a different organism than pneumococcus.

@Rarebear Flag me please if I’m really off topic, but what do you think about all ages of women getting the vaccine? Is it too late after the teen years?

@chyna According to my doctor, there may be a drop off in efficacy with age, but there are few to no studies done on its effects on older women. In her opinion, it’s worth getting if one is sexually active. Curious to see whether @Rarebear agrees. Of course, here it’s largely covered by insurance, so cost is less of an issue than it might be in the US.

@chyna Not off topic.
Only approved for women to 26 years of age (and men to 21, I think). However, I personally see no downside of giving it older. But I’m no expert in it as I don’t see adolescents any more.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/recommendations.html

Check that. Just looked it up. Men it’s okay to 26 also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54qSggykqKc.

http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2015/05/vaccine-injury-fund-tops-3-5-billion-as-patients-fight-for-payment/

@Aster I guess you’re okay with your children getting cancer. I, for one, am not.

@Rearbear there are no guarantees so I’m surprised you appear to accept that your children will be cancer victims without the three shots. To you, there is no doubt about it. No Gardisil means a cancer diagnosis.
At any rate, my “children” are grown now with their own families. Neither one will subject their children to Gardisil .
In 1987 I was diagnosed with cervical dysplasia and advised to have a hysterectomy. I refused .My next pap was normal .
In 1968 I was advised I “might as well” get a hysterectomy by my obgyn “since you’ve completed your family.” I refused.
In 1988 I had a breast lump the size of a pinto bean. I took a lot of vitamin E and propolis and it was gone in a week or two. Once again, I avoided being a surgeon’s guinea pig . (or Mercedes payment).

^^That says a lot about the doctors, but not really about the research.

I definitely believe there is an HPV connection to cervical cancers.

Was your “lump” a perfectly round cyst? I’ve had a cyst in my breast, I got two opinions, both weren’t trying to take it out. I didn’t even have a mammogram for it.

Often “bad” paps become good paps. That’s why some of the recommendations now are for Pap smears every three years. It really depends on the exact problem shown, and not everyone should wait to see what happens. I know someone who died from cervical cancer 5 years ago, and her Pap had been normal the year before the bad one. Her cancer was extremely aggressive.

I hear you about the hysterectomies. My mom had doctor after doctor telling her to get a hysterectomy for her fibroids and she refused and refused. Finally she went through menapause and they shrank to nothing.

Okay, well good luck to you and your family.

My female family doctor told me decades ago fibroids would just shrivel up. I guess they did. lol That is , if I had them. She never told me I did.
I read that paps rated “one” often return to normal. So I expected that would happen but since she never mentioned that could be the case I never went back to her. She was just a general practitioner with a cruddy office.
I can’t recall the shape of the lump. Too long ago. But I certainly wasn’t going to let them put my boobs in a vice? Never have done that either. Radiation to the chest wall doesn’t appeal to me.
I’m a huge devotee of supplements. I may put too much trust in them. I’ve gotten my husband and myself off of antibiotics for suspected UTI’s. He was taking them way too often. Now he trusts me more.
Thanks @Rarebear if that was for me.

Avoiding mammograms is a great way to end up with stage 4 breast cancer. Just ask my sister in law

@Seek I’m sure you know that mammograms use radiation , right? And that radiation causes cancer. Keep repeating the dose over the years and it is very risky.
My best friend forgot her yearly mammogram , just one, and it spread to her lung. So she had had many of them I assume. After three years of chemo and radiation she died from brain tumors. The last year was terrible. She went “by the book.” She accepted everything her oncologist told her to do including mastectomy after the lung metastasis was found.
I’m very sorry about your sister in law.

I’m 9000% sure the mammogram did not cause your friend’s cancer, but might have helped had they detected the cancer before it made it to her lungs and brain.

Looks like HPV is suspected to be linked to prostate cancer too. Wish I had been vaccinated.

@Aster: Many women get annual mammograms and don’t get cancer. Many women get annual mammograms and cancer is detected before it even spreads. For your friend who missed her mammogram and it spread to her lung, the oncologist can do little at that point but treat it best they can, but if it’s spread, there’s little hope of actually making it go away. Mammograms are the way to go.

Some people don’t know enough about radiation, innoculations or germ theory so they will never make informed decisions.

@Aster, how many times have you been on an aeroplane?

An aeroplane? Twice in a two seater; three times on a jet. Let’s not try and compare radiation value between mammograms and flying. Too complex.
@Seek two years after her false negative mammo she was diagnosed Stage IV. I assume it was a false negative. Radiologists are only human.
The two people I was close to who got cancer were both in extreme distress in their daily lives. I’m sure it weakened their immune systems. One of them, 65, had a quadruple heart bypass last week. He also has colon cancer and diabetes.

@cazzie Agreed, and to many, an uninformed decision is preferable to an informed decision. Fine if they want to endanger themselves, but it makes me sorry for their children, who cannot choose for themselves.

It is not complex at all, @Aster Mammography exposes people to 0.4 mSv, the dose from the airplane flight is 0.04 mSv, the average annual dose from food is 0.3 mSv, the average yearly background dose is 3.1mSv, and the limit for a radiation worker per year is 50 mSv.

So, depending on where you live, your average background dose is 3.1mSv. If you live in an area with bedrock that is full of radon, your exposure will be more, but our bodies are able to deal with radiation. We are constantly bombarded with radiation because we live near a sun and live on a planet that has naturally occurring radiation in its crust.

It’s a shame that people get sick, but it probably has more to do with genetics, diet and daily habits than a person’s exposure to radiation levels, unless they were exposed to fall out from a nuclear power plant gone bad or a bomb.

Just to point out an obvious: HPV vaccines have zero radiation. Just saying

Lol
Side note: one project I did was write firmware for a radiation monitor system. It was fun to play with but the lesson for me was that almost nobody understands radiation from the perspective of what is bad or not so bad. Once you are even a bit educated it’s not so scary.

@Aster I understand your point of view.

Back in the day there was a belief that the radiation from repeated mammograms might actually cause cancer. When I say belief, I mean there was some medical evidence. Now, the X-rays deliver much much less radiation.

I avoided mammograms yearly between ages 40 and 50, because I don’t know anyone under age 50 that had their breast cancer found on mammogram. I mean literally, women I knew with breast cancer under are 40 told the doctor they had something wrong, and it still wasn’t seen on mammogram. Obviously, these were small cancers, beginning stages. I did have them done about every three years. I just had mine today and I did a 3D one, which I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with the additional radiation, but I did it.

I also avoided yearly X-rays of my teeth, I’m very glad I did, only doing them every 2–3 years, but now that I’m older I’ll do them more regularly possibly.

I’d much rather do an MRI for my breasts, or an ultrasound, I’ve done ultrasounds.

In my opinion your total avoidance is a bad idea. Just my opinion. I also agree @Seek‘s SIL would have been way better off catching the cancer sooner, and probably it would have been caught in mammogram in an earlier stage. Unless it was inflammatory breast cancer, then doctors miss that diagnosis too, which is very annoying, and it’s not caught on mammogram I don’t think.

When I worked at the emergency veterinarian hospital, I took hundreds of x-rays, over almost 10 years. I wore a thyroid shield, and a lead apron. No other safety,and most of the times, my hands were close. None of the gloves fit my large wrists. And most of the time, we couldn’t control the animal with those lead gloves on anyway.

As @cazzie mentioned, it’s already bombarding us, from different sources (radiation) all the time.

You get worse radiation holding your hands on your steering wheel in the Sun, than in lots of medical procedures.

Radiation is also used to kill cancer. There are many types, and uses.

^^So, because your vet let you constantly be exposed to X-ray you think it’s ok? X-ray techs in hospitals wear radiation detection thingies to know if they get overexposed.

Do mammograms cause cancer

From the article @JLeslie just referred to: Should you still get mammograms?
Yes—but not more often than necessary. Mammograms don’t expose you to much more radiation than a traditional chest X-ray, and the risk posed by a single scan is extremely small. Still, any needless exposure poses needless risk. And some doctors recommend that women get screened every year, or start at a young age. We think that’s usually not necessary. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose advice helps set government policy on screening tests, says women ages 50 to 74 should get screened every two years. Those in their 40s or 75 and older should talk with a doctor to see whether the benefits outweigh the potential harm.

Also, if breast cancer runs in your family, you can be screened for the gene. It’s a damn good idea. (no radiation involved)

I’m all for screening for the gene, except to say I know years ago it was extremely expensive and some insurance companies didn’t cover it. I don’t know the case now. Maybe the price came down?

See, the company that owns the test had the patent and the monopoly back when I first read about it. That means $$$.

Unfortunately, something like 80% of breast cancer patients don’t test positive for the gene.

One of my girlfriend’s had a double mastectomy today. Her second occurrence of breast cancer, same kind. Not positive for the genes. She’s the only one in her family that has had breast cancer.

Another friend, practically every female in her family gets breast cancer, she’s negative for the genes already identified. She had her breasts removed profilactically. She got breast cancer 13–14 years after removing her breasts.

Pretty much if every woman gets breast cancer in your family I would assume you are at high risk, and you don’t need a test to know it.

@JLeslie . We had to be certified in x-ray radiation exposure. We did have “radiation thingies.” They were exchanged every few months. We wore them on the front of our aprons. They were constantly monitored for exceeded limitations.

In some states, techs are required to be out of the room, and the animal has to be fully sedated. I would have preferred that honestly, but I guarantee we saved more lives, by getting quicker x-rays. We put multiple chest tubes in,right there in radiology. Also, sedating a patient in shock, or respiratory distress is counterproductive. Cheaper x-rays too, without sedation. So more people opted for treatment. Anytime you put some animal under, you run a risk of them dying. Ask Michael Jackson… Propofol is one of the most commonly used agents for knocking a patient down. It has a draw back though. It’s recipients often stop breathing…

My point was, if you understand controlled radiation, it’s not as risky as some make it out to be.

You even get it from your phone. Really ,most electronic devices.

Propofol is the shit, though. Best. Sleep. Ever.

Until it kills you

@Seek Anaesthetics are supposed to make you sleep.

@cazzie Ask Michael Jackson; Propofol is the Anesthetics that killed him !

I request Propofol/Diprivan for my procedures. I don’t risk getting some sort of crap that I wake up halfway through in pain if I can help it. Been there, done that.

My sister was engaged to a profusionist. His secret propofol addiction killed him.

Addiction kills.

Doctors who over prescribe dangerous medication kill and should be held accountable.

In the case of Michael Jackson, it wasn’t just Propofol that killed him. It was a combination of several different depressants.

Propofol doesn’t protect against HPV either. Just saying

Lol. :).

@rarebear is there a way to test for having the HPV strains when it’s not “active.” I don’t know what words to use. I know it can be tested with samples from the cervix, but it’s only positive when it’s acting up.

The vaccine only works if your not already exposed right?

@JLeslie
Answer to question #1: Dunno
Answer to question #2: Correct.

Last time I had propofol and Versed I stopped breathing. Just as I was starting to feel scared I heard a “pop” noise and I could breathe again.
The oral surgeon never mentioned it. I’m trying to decide if I should bring it up when I go back to him to finish this implant.

I just read that Gardisil has been found to contain live HPV and aluminum. Sounds safe to me!

^ I advise to check your sources very well, just in case. You can find whatever you want on the internet.

“In an analysis of nearly 600 women between the ages of 20 and 26, 60 percent of those who had received the original Gardasil vaccine, which protects against only four strains (types) of HPV (6,11,16,18), had a higher risk of being infected with another non-vaccine HPV virus strain.

The unvaccinated women had lower rates of the non-vaccine high-risk strains of HPV, which suggests getting vaccinated may make you more susceptible to being infected with other strains of HPV.

The researchers’ solution to the problem was to suggest women who already have gotten three doses of the original four-strain Gardasil vaccine now get another shot of a new Gardasil vaccine, which contains nine different HPV strains.

In December 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Gardasil 9 that includes five additional HPV types (31, 33, 45, 52, 58) not found in the original vaccine. So if you have already received one or more doses of the original Gardasil vaccine, you may actually be at a higher risk of being infected with the five additional HPV types than if you had never been vaccinated at all.

@Aster What is the source of your quote?

It looks like a an anti-vaxer website. It is also a jumbled in thought and progression.

@Tropical_Willie I don’t recall the website. I do know , however, that arguments against prevalent thought is usually met with , “you can’t trust the internet.” The new go-to response. In a few years it’ll be, “nothing on the web is factual. ” lol

Well, a lot of shit on the ‘net is hearsay. Not even wikipedia is that reliable. Anyone can say whatever they want.
Also:

“In an analysis of nearly 600 women between the ages of 20 and 26, 60 percent of those who had received the original Gardasil vaccine, which protects against only four strains (types) of HPV (6,11,16,18), had a higher risk of being infected with another non-vaccine HPV virus strain.” Well, duh! If you have a vaccine against flu, it protects you against flu. You can’t blame the flu vaccine on your broken leg. If it wasn’t designed against that specific type of a virus, of course you can get that type of the virus.

Another also: you just quoted that. Unless you have an exceptionally good memory, you do know the site you got that from.

The internet produces bullshit at or greater than the rate it produces pornography.

@Aster Since you helpfully quoted the article, I can tell you that it is this one.

The author uses words from the abstract of this presentation: http://www.abstractsonline.com/plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?mID=3682&sKey=7f019f73-accb-484e-becc-5ecc405f8ec5&cKey=e2313b32-d6ac-4443-ab2d-49c368ea3b89&mKey=19573a54-ae8f-4e00-9c23-bd6d62268424 (sorry, Fluther won’t let me hyperlink), which found that the vaccine is effective in decreasing occurrence of the strains it covers (as @Sneki95 noted), to imply that the vaccine increases occurrence of strains it does not cover. The authors note that the vaccine cannot protect against HPV contracted before vaccination, and that the efficacy of the vaccine may decrease with age, as we discussed above. That’s all… obvious, not ominous.

In other words, the author of the article you quoted is lying.

Oh, @Aster I found the article you copied (including the leading quote-mark)

It was from a anti-vaxer website run by a natural health guy Mercola. Who has money backing him from anti medical groups and a few Chiropractors, he has been brought up on charges of false claims and collecting money from the claims.

Hey Aster, that’s a load of bullshit, sorry. Love, Rarebear

Correlation does NOT mean causation, unless there is sufficient evidence to prove otherwise

@Aster “I just read that Gardisil has been found to contain live HPV and aluminum.”

First of all, Gardasil does not contain live HPV. It does contain amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, which is an adjuvant. But while aluminum might seem like an odd ingredient if you’re thinking about aluminum foil or a solid metal ingot, vaccines do not have chunks of metal in them. They contain aluminum salts, which boost the immune response of the vaccine’s recipient and prevent different batches of a vaccine from having wildly different levels of effectiveness.

Like I said before, chemical composition matters. There’s a big difference between an aluminum salt (such as aluminum phosphate, aluminum hydroxide, or amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate) and a hunk of solid aluminum. And in any case, infants get more than twice the amount of aluminum from breastfeeding than they do from vaccines. So unless you are willing to declare breast milk dangerous, complaining about aluminum salts is just ridiculous.

I’m teaching my son chemistry so he doesn’t fall for the bullshit that @Aster is.

That’s like saying, I wash myself with salt every day. No, it’s a sodium compound, sure, but it’s soap, not the salt you put on your food. Big difference.

[Mod says] Let’s get back on topic, please. This question is about science, not Fluther.

Science education is essential so that people understand risk assessment and how medicine works. It probably sounds strange to us now, but people refused to take insulin when it was first invented because people thought it was going to turn them into a cow. Even Ben Franklin and his older brother didn’t believe in innoculation for the pox, until Ben tore free of his brother’s influence and educated himself on the matter and later made amends with the church folk who were encouraging people to get immunised. (Yes, you read that right, it was a pastor of a church who was a strong campaigner for the immunisation program and not the Franklin brothers, to begin with) People just need to learn science (and a bit of math wouldn’t hurt, either.)