A few days ago, newspapers published the story of a British schoolgirl who became ill and died just hours after receiving an immunization shot of the drug Cervarix. The shot is to immunize young girls against the human papilloma virus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer. The news stories left a clear impression that the girl had died from the vaccine.The maker of the vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline, recalled a batch of the vaccine for testing, and the government health service quarantined a batch. But now it looks like everyone overreacted.
Dr. Caron Grainger, director of Coventry NHS services, said the vaccination was "most unlikely to have caused the death", and revealed that a preliminary post-mortem examination had "revealed a serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death."
In plain language, the vaccine did not cause the death, but just coincidentally happened to be given right before her serious medical problem struck. The government is not stopping the vaccination program.
It did seem odd that the vaccine would all of a sudden turn into a killer. About 1.4 million doses have been given out and there have only been 4657 adverse reactions -- none of them life threatening (see chart for the specific reactions).
I hope the news organizations will give as much space or time to the news that the vaccine is not responsible for the death, as they did when inferring the vaccine was responsible. They scared a lot of people by drawing premature conclusions.
