Saturday, April 20, 2013

Australia: Vaccines (once again) proven safe and effective

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Vaccines

It’s more restating the obvious, but that doesn’t make it less worthwhile:

Some good vaccine news for a change: A vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) appears to be working. HPV causes genital warts, and can lead to cervical cancer in women. In Australia, which began use of the HPV vaccine in 2007, cases of genital warts in young women aged 12 - 26 dropped 59 percent, and 39 percent for men. Not only that, but cervical abnormalities dropped as well—a glimmer of hope that for these vaccinated women, their chance of getting cervical cancer is dropping as well.

Meanwhile, US scientists and medical workers are still struggling to get the American populace to understand that Gardasil will not turn teenaged girls into sex-crazed nymphos by demonic possession or something. Then again, this is the same country that’s facing more and more outbreaks of easily preventable diseases (some of them deadly) because of baseless and endlessly disproven fears that shots turn children into Rain Man, so you can only expect so much in the end.