Cervical Cancer Vaccine Called Safe

Oct. 24 -- WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay) -- Gardasil, the two-year-old vaccine that's designed to prevent cervical cancer, is safe, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Immunization Safety Office said a study of 370,000 doses given to girls and young women over the past two years found no evidence that the vaccine causes an increased risk of blood clots or other serious conditions, Bloomberg News reported.

The CDC, which recommends the vaccine for girls starting at ages 11 and 12, based its findings on statistics from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which uses medical data to test hypotheses about vaccine safety, the news service said.

"There were no associations found that suggested an elevated risk," said John Iskander, acting director for the Immunization Safety Office, told Bloomberg.

Critics of the vaccine, including some groups that worry that the inoculation could promote promiscuity, have contended that Gardasil may not be safe and could give women a false sense of security about sexually transmitted diseases.

Gardasil protects against four types of genital human papillomavirus, HPV, which is spread through sexual contact and can cause cervical cancer in women.

The U.S. study covered 190,000 girls and young women who received at least one dose of the vaccine's three-shot regimen. The CDC researchers compared medical data on those girls who got the vaccine with data for girls and young women who received other vaccines or none.

"The results are really reassuring," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the infectious diseases division at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "There's a public perception that the vaccine is not safe. This is important for countering negative information."

CDC officials had announced earlier this month that an estimated 25 percent of girls aged 11 to 17 have gotten the vaccine.

"This is very good for a first-year measurement of a new vaccine," Dr. Lance Rodewald, director of the Division of Immunization Services at the CDC' National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a Oct. 9 teleconference announcing the survey. "It usually takes six to nine years to achieve the desired 90 percent coverage."