Medical expert calls for caution in vaccine scare
Print Edition
One of France’s top medical experts appealed for calm yesterday as a scare over a widely administered vaccine that prevents cervical cancer gathered momentum.
Daniel Floret, the chair of the national committee that oversees vaccinations, said there was no evidence to link Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), with serious auto-immune conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
Floret was responding to a criminal complaint filed by Marie-Oceane Bourguignon, 18, against Gardasil’s French distributor, Sanofi Pasteur MSD.
The case was being given prominent play by France’s media.
Bourguignon herself gave a press conference in Bordeaux to describe how she believes taking the vaccine left her in a wheelchair, scarcely able to see or hear.
Floret cautioned against reading too much into one case.
“The fact that a complaint has been made does not mean there is a problem. We are putting all the focus on the potential side effects and forgetting what this vaccine brings,” said Floret.
“None of the international medical safety controls has showed up any link between this vaccine and any kind of auto-immune disease, and millions of doses have been administered.”
Licensed for use in 120 countries, Gardasil has been given to 2.3 million French adolescents. It is one of two blockbuster HPV vaccines used around the world on the basis of research showing a link between HPV and cervical, oral and anal cancer.
In Britain, where the vaccine is offered to all girls aged 12 and 13, the National Health Service estimates the program saves 400 lives per year.
Bourguignon was vaccinated with Gardasil at the end of 2010 when she was 15. Within two months she had developed symptoms that included vertigo, vomiting, temporary loss of sight and the use of her legs, and facial paralysis.
“I was consumed by rage,” her father, Jean-Jacques, 57, said yesterday. “For something like that to happen to a child in good health — it has ruined our lives.”
According to her lawyer, Jean-Christophe Coubris, Bourguignon has been diagnosed as suffering from either an acute form of encephalomyelitis, a generalized inflammation of the immune system, or multiple sclerosis.
Her legal case seeks to establish the liability of both Sanofi and France’s medicines safety agency, arguing the latter body failed in its statutory duty of care when it authorized the vaccine.
Coubris said this was supported by a medical commission’s findings in Aquitaine.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
