There is no doubt that certain strains of the HPV virus cause cancers such as cervical and throat (oropharyngeal) cancer; a Review on how effective the original vaccines were and whether Chris Woollams was right in his original comments and concerns.
2008 - The UK Launch of HPV vaccines
On Tuesday August 26th 2008, I was telephoned by a journalist (writes Chris Woollams). Apparently whilst I was overseas the Government decided to give all 13 year old girls going back to school in the next fortnight the cervical cancer vaccine, Cervarix. I missed this important, and potentially life changing, decision. This health programme will be backed by a large Media campaign and is designed to be the forefront of cervical cancer prevention in the UK. Now there's a surprise.
The journalist rang me ’because I was against it’. The Truth is that I’m not against it at all - but then I’m not 100% for it either. I just think this hurried and limited vaccine is potentially an enormous, over-hyped, expensive risk, mainly because it is not proven that being infected when you are 16 by these two HPV strains will cause the cervical cancer you may develop when you are 36, or the throat cancer when you are 58. And that's because I think there is more testing to be done, more strains to include. I also hear boys (who have not been researched and anyway have a different biochemistry) will be included in the vaccination programme and I think this is a rush for little reason other that one drug company wants to beat the others to be the first to launch.
I think it is already known other HPV strains cause cancer and I think Cervarix misses those.
An Objective viewpoint from a scientist
So, let us be clear:
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For a Government to mandate vaccinating every 13 year old girl is quite probably against European Human Rights Laws - but apparently a girl can opt out if she asks to.
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If you don’t want it for your 13 year old daughter, but she wants to have it, she gets the vote, not you. At 13 she knows best. You are only her mother.
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This is not a vaccination programme to stop the spread of, and hopefully eradicate, a disease like measles. You are not being somewhat socially irresponsible if you don’t have the jab. The Government has chosen the cheaper drug and this is effective against just two of the 16 or so strains of Humanpapilloma Virus. Boys are carriers too. And there is an increasing clamour to vaccinate them too but there is no research at all so far where the vaccine has been tested on males.
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Neither the Press Release nor two ’experts’ I talked to could tell me for certain if this vaccine prevents the two strains from infecting the body or whether, once infected, the vaccines prevent the formation of full blown cervical cancer. I presume it is the former. Certainly the vaccine is no use if you already have the dangerous strains of HPV in your body.
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We are told that the two strains prevented by the Cervarix vaccine, also known as 2vHPV. account for 70 per cent of the HPV-driven cases of cervical cancer. So what about other HPV strains? I think we will see others that contribute to cancer as more testing is done. I think this is the usual alarmist 'sell' that is the standard for Big Pharma. The CDC have clearly stated that the Cevarix vaccine does not stop a girl catching any of the other 14 varieties, so what's to say you can't still develop cervical cancer - research knowledge at this point is poor.
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By contrast, using condoms has been shown in US research to prevent infection by 70 per cent of any strain of HPV, and almost 100 per cent of HIV and all manner of STD’s as well.
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In the USA 6 million people carry HPV at any time. 3,700 women die every year from cervical cancer. One CDC estimate said that 80% of us are infected with HPV - it's a Herpes virus and, like cold sores, it lies dormant in our nerve endings. Our immune system keeps HPV suppressed. One report I read talked of an average duration for the virus of 12 months in boys and two years in girls.
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If you really want to ensure these two strains of HPV don’t take hold, you obviously need to vaccinate before the girl has her first sexual experience. In the USA Merck suggested vaccinating all 9 year old girls. Really? And where did that research come from?
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Conversely, many girls will still not have had their first sexual experience by the age of 19. There is also no research evidence to show the length of effectiveness of the vaccine. Already there is talk of needing to repeat it every five years, so the second shot will come at the age of 18.
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If shots are required every five years, how do you feel about the prospect of possibly needing 10 in your lifetime, depending upon how sexually active you (and your partner) might be?
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There are reports of side-effects like dizziness and fainting with vaccinated girls. But then that’s girls for you. Where are the Clinical Trial side-effects?
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If all girls and boys (as some experts wish) were vaccinated every five years, this would equate to a 2 billion shot programme every year. Does NICE think the NHS has this sort of money in the coffers?
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The Press release says that at current infection rates this will save between 500 and 700 lives in the UK annually. So, is this ’money well spent’? And how are we going to measure the value? Do we watch the rate of HPV cancers falling over the next 50 years to calculate the number of lives saved? Even if this is successful, we may not see full results for 20-30 years.
The euphoria, the hype and the extensive media coverage may well obscure some of these facts. We thought you might like to be sure of them.
2025 - What happened since launch? Where are we?
1. In 2014 Gardasil 9 was approved. The 9vHPV vaccine adds 5 additional antigens, providing protection against 9 types of cancer-causing human papillomaviruses. So, as I predicted, unlike 2-target Cevarix, Gardasil 9 protects against an extra 7 types of cancer-causing HPV; in total cancer-causing strains are 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58. We should have waited.
2. There is also Gardasil 4, or 4vHPV, manufactured using a similar process, and containing 4 of the same antigens: HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18.
3. The US CDC recommends HPV vaccination for everyone (girls and boys) only until 26 years, if not vaccinated already. Teens and young adults who start the series at ages 15 through to 26 years still need three doses of HPV vaccine. This will be much cheaper for the NHS.
4. Despite the vaccinations over the past 12 years, HPV throat cancer (primarily caused by HPV type 16) is becoming more common, especially among non-smoking males (1).
5. According to the CDC, in parts of the body where human papillomavirus (HPV) is often found: the number of cancer cases were 26,280 among females, and 21,704 among males. HPV causes about 37,800 of these cancers. These numbers have been rising (1)
6. However, according to Livescience, 'CDC data reveals a 'plummeting rate' of cervical precancers in young US women — down by 80%. Each year, around 11,500 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in the U.S, and 4,000 women die annually from the disease. Nearly all cervical cancer cases — over 90% — are caused by infection with high-risk types of HPV. Cervical cancer is most commonly diagnosed in women ages 35 to 44'. These conclusions were plastered all over the American media.
7. How many lives are actually being saved? When you actually look at the study, 'According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a government agency, around 13 women aged younger than 25 died from cervical cancer between 2019 and 2021, compared to 35 between 2013 and 2015 — a 62% decrease in cancer-related deaths' (2). 10 less? On 35? That's 28.6%. How figures are distorted between the research study and a newspaper headline!!
8. But this is not robust data. For example, were there the same number of women in each group? Which shot did the girls have? Likely it was the 9-strain version not the Cervarix weakling. Did Covid-19 affect the number of recorded Cervical Cancer deaths? How many people dying between 2019 and 2022 had their death incorrectly recorded as Covid? We still need to see some genuinely robust data with equal groups and no extraneous and adverse conditions that might affect the results.
9. In 2016, Texas University Medical School extracted a compound from Shiitake mushrooms which they named AHCC. In a 6 month study they claimed it 'eradicated' HPV.
10. In 2025 we prepared a review of the natural compounds that might reduce levels of active HPV in the body.
Go to: HPV and cancer - are there any natural treatments?
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References
1. CDC and HPV - https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/cases.html
2. Cervical cancer deaths have plummeted among young women, US study finds - Livescience