Whatever you think of the publicity surrounding the death of Jade
Goody, it has highlighted the danger to young women of cervical cancer.
The good news is that the number of women reporting for smears has risen, and hundreds of thousands of schoolgirls have already been vaccinated against the virus (HPV) which causes the disease. It's a huge medical advance, even if the government has so far refused to extend vaccination to teenage boys, who can't contract cervical cancer themselves but are able pass on the virus.
Not everyone likes the vaccination, however. It's been dubbed the
"promiscuity jab", usually by the same people who oppose sex education
in schools and claim that abstinence is the only answer to STDs and
teenage pregnancy. And now the Daily Mail has thrown its weight against the vaccination, running headlines suggesting that girls have suffered terrifying side-effects - "paralysis, epilepsy and blurred vision" - after having the jab.
Last week, it ratcheted up the campaign, giving a huge amount of space to a feature about parents who "have seen their daughters fall ill within days of receiving the jab". The paper photographed one 12-year-old girl in a wheelchair, wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, and said she has been "partially paralysed" after having the vaccination. Another, aged 13, has aching joints and blackouts, and has not been to school since September last year.
The Mail hasn't produced any evidence to prove that the girls' health problems were caused by the cervical cancer jab. It's also had to admit that hardly more that 1,300 adverse effects, most of them minor, have been reported to the regulatory authority - that's 0.18% of the 700,000 girls vaccinated so far. That hasn't stopped the paper running scare stories and suggesting that "many other parents" have seen their daughters fall ill after having the jab.
No one should forget that the Mail has form on this issue. It campaigned long and hard against the MMR vaccine, continuing to link it with autism and allowing its columnists to rail against the government for supposedly endangering the nation's children. It was the conspiracy theory par excellence, based on a single (now discredited) paper and anecdotal accounts from distressed parents. It was one of the most discreditable episodes in the Mail's history, and it was followed by a dramatic decrease in take-up of the MMR vaccine. As British doctors warned, with insufficient children being vaccinated, measles has made a comeback in this country.
The parallels between the Daily Mail's MMR campaign and its claims about the cervical cancer vaccination are disturbing. Happily, other newspapers take a different view. In Ireland, where health minister Mary Harney has shelved a plan to vaccinate 26,000 12-year-old girls – to save money, not because of anxiety about side-effects - one paper in particular is campaiging hard to get the decision reversed. It has pointed out that a combination of screening and vaccination would cut deaths from cervical cancer in Ireland by 80%, and promised that it "will not relent" until the jab is rolled out across the country.
Well done, the Irish Daily Mail. I'd love to see it hold a debate with its London-based stablemate.
