Children should be given HPV vaccine at primary school say doctors

WHO IS GIVEN THE JAB?

All girls aged between 12 and 18 are are offered a free vaccination against HPV by the NHS to help protect them against cervical cancer under a programme launched by UK health officials in 2008. However, boys aren’t given the jab.

In the US, the CDC recommends for all children to receive the vaccine, which was approved by the FDA in 2010, between the ages of nine and 12. Catch-up jabs are then available for men up to the age of 21 and women up to 26.

It’s estimated that about 400 lives could be saved every year in the UK as a result of vaccinating girls – while around 30,000 cases of cancer could be avoided in the US each year with the jab, according to figures. 

WAVE OF ALLEGATIONS

However, a wave of allegations over the controversial HPV jab has caused vaccine rates to plummet to as low as 1 per cent in some countries.

Anti-vaccine campaigners have the slump, which has badly affected Japan, which had a vaccine rate of 70 per cent just four years ago. 

They have posted hundreds of unsourced videos online featuring girls in wheelchairs that they claim have been disabled by the jab.  

The downturn in vaccination rates came after an allegedly fake study on mice linked the vaccine to neurological issues.

A wave of allegations over the controversial HPV jab has caused vaccine rates to plummet to as low as 1 per cent in some countries

‘PROMOTING PSEUDOSCIENCE’ 

However, the world’s leading health officials have repeatedly slammed anti-vaxxers for ‘promoting pseudoscience’.

Government authorities agree there is no evidence to support a link between HPV vaccination and chronic illnesses.

The World Health Organisation, CDC, Public Health England and the European Medicines Regulator have ‘extensively reviewed the vaccine’s safety’.

They concluded there is ‘no credible evidence of a link between the HPV vaccine and a range of chronic illnesses’. 

They warn the vaccine has been proven to be safe in more than 10 years of studies, and it is essential for preventing dozens of HPV-linked cancers.

And last year, the revered John Maddox prize for ‘sense about science’ was awarded to a Japanese researcher who debunked the jab claims. 

HOW MANY SIDE EFFECTS HAVE THERE BEEN? 

English health officials received 3,972 ‘yellow cards’ – warnings of side effects – between 2010 and 2013 for the controversial HPV jab Gardasil.

In Europe, 11,867 reactions to Gardasil have been recorded up to February 2017, according to The European Medicines Agency.

Many report symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, and cases of girls being left paralysed are rare. Fatalities have occurred, reports also showed.