Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11249

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Publication type: news

Branswell H.
Health officials call Macleans article on HPV vaccine alarmist, unbalanced
Canadian Press 2007 Aug 18
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/070818/x081804A.html

Full text:

TORONTO (CP) – Canada’s chief public health officer took issue on Friday with a Macleans magazine cover story that suggested adoption of a new vaccine against human papillomavirus – or HPV – was making “guinea pigs” out of Canadian girls.

The five-page article, headlined “Our Girls Aren’t Guinea Pigs,”’ raises alarm about the safety of the HPV vaccine Gardasil, questioning whether the soon-to-start inoculation programs in several provinces amount to an experiment on a generation of pre-teen and teenage girls.

Dr. David Butler-Jones strenuously objected to the article, saying federal, provincial and territorial public health leaders – who universally support the adoption of the vaccine – would never endorse a preventive health measure thought to be of questionable safety.

“To suggest this is some grand experiment is inappropriate,” Butler-Jones said in an interview from Saskatchewan.

“There’s no way that we would support that kind of thing. You don’t do that. It’s totally unethical.”

Butler-Jones, who heads the Public Health Agency of Canada, wrote a letter to the editor of the magazine complaining about the article. A press release on the letter was to be posted on the agency’s website on Friday.

Macleans editor-in-chief Kenneth Whyte defended the article, saying it reflected concerns over the vaccine being expressed within the medical community.

“This isn’t about Macleans. This is about the health and safety of adolescent and pre-adolescent Canadian girls,” Whyte said in a statement e-mailed to The Canadian Press.

“We wish the public health officer would turn his attention from us and address the misgivings that have been raised by people in peer-reviewed medical journals and by competent medical professionals. There are obviously serious differences of opinion about the vaccine within the medical community. Many questions remain unanswered. That’s why we did the story.”

The Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health – the group representing provincial and territorial chief medical officers – was considering similar action against the magazine, confirmed Dr. Perry Kendall, medical officer for British Columbia.

Kendall said in an e-mail that he was concerned about what he termed the alarmist tone of the article.

The HPV vaccine protects against infection by four strains of human papillomavirus, two of which are responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancers. (The other two strains in the vaccine protect against genital warts.)

Butler-Jones said the decision to move ahead with the HPV vaccine was based on science. And he noted that other countries, including Australia, have also adopted the vaccine.

“The suggestion that basically public health officials, obstetricians and gynecologists and all of those that have reviewed the evidence – including independent bodies and those charged with the care of women as well as those charged with the health of the public – would somehow promote a vaccine as an experiment on young women or anyone is somewhat offensive,” he said.