Despite lackluster acceptance among girls for a vaccine to prevent cancer-causing sexually transmitted viruses, the American Academy of Pediatrics is fully recommending that boys get the shots as well.
Boys 11 and 12 should be immunized routinely, with three doses of a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), the AAP said Monday in its online issue of Pediatrics. This formally updates the academy’s previous policy of “permissive recommendation” for vaccination of males.
They were told the vaccine had few side-effects and would protect their daughter from cervical cancer.
But Steve and Pauline Hinks are convinced the controversial HPV jab is behind their daughter Lucy’s mystery illness which is making her sleep up to 23 hours a day.
Tests have so far ruled out a brain tumour and glandular fever and the 13-year-old’s paediatric consultant is investigating potential links with the vaccine Cervarix.
The jab was used in a national vaccination programme which started in September 2008. But it has already been linked to several cases of girls displaying severe side-effects.
Before she received the vaccine, Lucy was perfectly healthy, had an excellent school attendance record and was among the top students in her year.
A schoolgirl has been left in a ‘waking coma’, too exhausted to open her eyes or speak, after having a cervical cancer vaccine.
Last October and again a month later, Lucy Hinks joined her classmates at school in Wigton in Cumbria to have the HPV jab Cervarix as part of a country-wide programme.