Mass psychogenic response to human papillomavirus vaccination

Buttery, Jim P; Madin, Simon; Crawford, Nigel W; Elia, Sonja; La Vincente, Sophie; Hanieh, Sarah; Smith, Lindsay; Bolam, Bruce

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2008.tb02018.x

Topics

Cervical cancer associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) affects approximately 1000 Australian women each year, causing about 300 deaths.1 The newly licensed HPV vaccines Gardasil (CSL Limited), a quadrivalent vaccine (4vHPV), and Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines), a bivalent vaccine (2vHPV), induce protection against the two most common strains of HPV, which cause 70% of all cervical cancers.2,3

1 SAEFVIC, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC.
2 Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC.
3 Infectious Diseases Unit and Immunisation Service, Department of General Medicine, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC.
4 Victorian Department of Human Services, Melbourne, VIC.
5 National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.
6 Department of Paediatric Neurology, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: jim.buttery@rch.org.au

Competing interests:

GlaxoSmithKline supported Jim Buttery’s travel to speak at an international meeting by payment to the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

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