Remember a couple years ago when there was a big kick-off about the safety of the HPV (Human Papillomavirus) Vaccine?

The virus causes 99.7% of all cases of cervical cancer – the second deadliest for women, after breast cancer.

But some concern sprang up around the safety of the jab. This was inflamed by the fact that it’s most effective when given to girls aged 12-13. Stories of girls fainting and other health scares snowballed the concern into full-on fear. Tabloids branded the jab “as deadly as the cancer”. Parents stone-walled the vaccine.

We did a graphic at the time to show the chances of a nasty or fatal outcome were miniscule (you had more chance being struck by lightning).

This week we noticed, via Dr Jen Gunter’s site, that detailed new data has appeared on the vaccine and its safety.

Inevitably, I’ve graphickised® the essence for easy injection into your mind.



As ever, all our data, sources and calculations: http://bit.ly/HPVsafety

There’s that data link if you want to check our sources: http://bit.ly/HPVsafety

I’m refreshing and redesigning a selection of our diagrams over the next week. So stay tuned.