My oldest daughter almost died from the first Gardasil, so you may not die from cervical cancer, but die from something else. I am not against vaccines; my kids are all fully vaccinated on a spaced-out schedule and not taking more than one shot in at least 2 months, and so am I, but the HPV vaccine was not mandatory, so, given the experience and the similar genetics, we didn't do it for the other two kids. Yeah, there's a risk of cancer, which might be curable 5-10-15 years from now, but the risk of side effects is here now... for some. So, it's not always a win-win, and we've got no interest from health authorities in assessing the risk for my other two kids, so they also seem very risk-averse and want us to assume all the negatives.
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Yeah I thought about mentioning the fairly rare but awful cases that seem pretty clearly linked to the shot. It may be not very common, but it is a thing, and it's worth considering in the cost-benefit analysis.
> my kids are all fully vaccinated on a spaced-out schedule and not taking more than one shot in at least 2 months
Why? At what point did you say “I know a better vaccine schedule than highly trained specialist doctors who have done decades of research on hundreds of thousand of children”? You don’t find this incredibly naive to think you know better than them?
I have seen a "highly trained specialist" declare that a baby can easily accommodate thousands of vaccines a day (advocating for the then existing vaccine schedule), because the immune system encounter that many pathogens per day!
I hope I don't have to explain the fallacy in that to the crowd here.
There exists a possibility that they were correct and you are not.
But the larger possibility is that it is the other way around...
Anaphylaxis is going to happen something like 3 per million Gardasil doses.
The math doesn’t math on the decision not to get the vaccine unless you know for a fact that you’re going to have an anaphylactic reaction. The risk of cancer is far higher if you choose to take the alternative risk.
When you got the shot didn't they tell you about the possible side effects and what to watch for?
I know for the Covid vaccine I had to sit for an hour to make sure of something not happening.
We forgot to get another vaccine shot. On the form, they ask if we want Gardasil. We declined. Then they took our daughter to administer the shots. They brought her back and started to apologize: "We're sorry, we didn't see that you declined, and we gave her the shot anyway." We could've sued them, especially with the adverse effects, but we're coming from a culture that's not overly litigious.
And this is not the first time doctors in leading Southern California medical groups have completely ignored what's on the form! My son was going to have a minor surgery, so they asked me: "Oh, we give an anesthetic before we actually administer the actual one, because some kids are afraid of shots." I told them he's one of those kids and always liked, actually, even watching when they administer the shot, and never cries. This is given he's already on IV! Another doctor came a minute later and started changing the IV. I asked him, "What are you doing?" He said he was administering the pre-anesthetic. And I said that we declined it on the form, but it was too late. Then another doctor came and started to apologize - they don't read, they assume what people want! And this was at CHOC, the most prestigious children's hospital! Of course, as I said, we didn't sue.
So, I know that you should double-check and ask exactly what they are doing. Unfortunately, you can do this only if you're present. And you should always require them to repeat what they plan to do to your kids if they are taking them away from you. And... you should sue, as commercial entities, just like people, learn best when it hurts.
When I got it they didn't, no. Didn't have to stay either. But I was fine.
My condolences and a hug.
Please forgive others who are insensible in this community and downvote you in spite of the terrible situation you had to deal with.
I find it extremely troubling that this comment detailing your very personal experience was flagged because it went against a prescribed narrative.
Except that HPV vaccines are not mandatory in most states [0].
[0]: https://www.immunize.org/official-guidance/state-policies/va...