Policy: Research

Analysis beyond clinical trials is critical to ensure public safety. Warns Lippman: "What happens in the real world can be very different from what happens in the clinical research world," where girls are in a controlled environment, and get health examinations frequently to gauge any problems. "The real world is where we find out what really happens when you let a vaccine loose on a population."
What the public needs to understand is that even if HPV vaccination progs continue to develop and expand, the public needs to know that young women can still develop HPV infection and cervical cancer after being immunized. Harper, the HPV researcher at Dartmouth, tells of a yet unpublished study that shows that if females aged 12-26 who are vaccinated don’t go get pap tests after the vaccine, the rate of cervical cancer will go up compared to pre immunization rates.. "So there is significant danger in people feeling this vaccine offers them a force field protection," says Harper, "and that could actually rebound back to us because there are other HPV types out there and they're not going to stop causing cancer just because we've given a vaccine."

Research studies such as the one aforementioned will eventually come to light in the years to come. It is up to the government of Canada to conduct studies in order to determine if the vaccine that they are purchasing is safe in the long term for females across the country. Whether or not this will happen is probably going to be determined by how many adverse reactions are reported in the future. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies have the money and the power to lobby for the implementation of their vaccine – and it is not until it is too late, that the vaccine gets pulled off the market. It is up to the mass media campaigns to be honest and inform the public about the real issues related to HPV and cervical cancer and the importance of looking at both sides of the issue because to fund a research project against a major pharmaceutical company is next to impossible. The Candian Women’s health network would be an ally in this process however, as they will be sure to publish and stand behind any study or finding that goes against the mass acceptance of Gardasil as a ‘lifesaver’ for women all over the world.