The Facts About Gardasil By Andrew Coldrick

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What is Gardasil? Gardasil is a vaccine that was officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration on June 8 th, It is administered through injection and distributed by the Merck pharmaceutical corporation The Gardasil virus is designed for the use in preventing certain types of the human papillomavirus The types of cervical cancer that Gardasil is designed to protect against causes approximately 70% of types of cervical cancer and 90% of genital warts. However, it does not deal with all forms of cervical cancer, and this is one of the reasons why the vaccine is so controversial

How Gardasil Works Gardasil, like all vaccines, is essentially a weakened version of the virus injected into the body in order to build up immunity to it

What is HPV? HPV, or genital human papillomavirus, is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States, with more than half of sexually active men and women getting infected with the virus at some point in their lives About 20 million Americans are current infected, and about 6 million get infected each year The condition is usually spread via sexual contact Most of the time, HPV doesn’t cause any noticable symptoms, but it can lead to cervical cancer in some women, which is the 2 nd leading form of cancer amongst women in the world Vaginal and vulvar cancers are also thought to be caused by the HPV virus There is no cure for HPV infection, but some of the problems that it causes can be treated

Benefits of Gardasil The Gardasil virus can prevent most forms of cervical cancer in females Protection from HPV after receiving the virus is considered to be long-lasting As well as protecting from cervical cancer, it can also prevent vaginal and vulvar cancer in females, and genital warts in both males and females

Side Effects

Controversy The Gardasil vaccine is controversial for a number of reasons. These reasons include health concerns, moral concerns, and concerns regarding potential forced vaccinations Gardasil does have numerous side effects. Some of the less harmful side effects include pain, headaches, fever, nausea, and dizziness. Some of the more harmful side effects include fainting, swollen glands, bleeding and bruising, as well as fainting Many religious and social conservatives view Gardasil as a vaccine that could potentially encourage young women to be promiscuous, and thus consider Gardasil to be immoral The fact that Merck is lobbying on behalf of forced Gardasil vaccinations for girls is also a major point of contention. In 2007, Texas Governor Rick Perry passed an executive order mandating all teenage girls in his state get injected with Gardasil was later rescinded over mass opposition

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