HPV Vaccine does not cause retardation

Anecdotal claims, while evidence, are very weak evidence.  Let us suggest for a moment that someone came up to me in a crowd and told me that their daughter received the HPV vaccine.  She then grew 4 inches in the following two weeks after being short all her life.  She lost all acne and started receiving straight A's in her classes.  The mother told me that this was all caused by the HPV vaccine.

Well one, there are lots of things that can cause better grades, clearer skin, and growth spurts.  How am I to know that the HPV vaccine was the cause?  Was she under any other factors? Perhaps she received another type of vaccine?  Two, how am I to know the story is true to begin with.  Perhaps the mother was deceived and her daughter was given the placebo vaccine.  The mother honestly believed that her daughter received the vaccine.  Perhaps the mother was knowingly lying and her daughter never received the vaccine.  How am I supposed to know, if I am in a strange town among strangers?

This is why medical science abhors anecdotal claims.  The claims may be true, but you are not qualified to diagnose the truth.  These claims must be proven true after other alternative explanations have been ruled out.

Bachmann said,

The problem is, it comes with some very significant consequences. There's a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine. There are very dangerous consequences. It's not good enough to take, quote, "a mulligan" where you want a do-over, not when you have little children's lives at risk.

 There are no documented cases of mental retardation from the HPV vaccine.  If the mother's daughter is the first, she should submit here daughter to study.  Only 1% of those that get the HPV have "adverse events" after receiving the vaccine. Of this 1% only 8% receive "serious adverse events."

A 1998 study linking autism to vaccines was exposed earlier this year as a complete fraud. However, anti-vaccine activists continue to believe there is a connection.

The Center for Disease Control notes on its website that less than one percent of recipients reported “adverse events” after receiving the vaccine. Of those, 8 percent were “serious adverse events” — including Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurologic disorder that causes paralysis and muscle weakness, not cognitive disability.*

According to the CDC, studies showed no serious side effects to the vaccine and “there has been no indication” that the vaccine “increases the rate of GBS above the rate expected in the general population.” Bachmann cited no specific evidence to back up the anecdote.[1]

Of the 1% that have these "adverse events", 92% are fainting, pain, and swelling at the injection site (the arm), headache, nausea, and fever.  Fainting is common with injections involving adolescents.  Head injuries can be prevented by having the adolescents remained seated for fifteen minutes.    As for the 8% of the 1%, the .08% of those that receive the vaccines:

Any VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] report that indicated hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly or death is classified as serious. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.

It is very difficult to prove that a serious event is caused by the vaccine since these events are so rare. These events already occur at low rates in the population. For example:

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) has been reported after vaccination with Gardasil® . GBS is a rare neurologic disorder that causes muscle weakness. It occurs in 1-2 out of every 100,000 people in their teens. A number of infections have been associated with GBS. There has been no indication that Gardasil® increases the rate of GBS above the rate expected in the general population, whether or not they were vaccinated.

This disorder occurs already in 1-2 out of 100,000 teenagers.  Some have blamed some of these cases on the HPV vaccine, but there has not been an increase in the rate of the disorder.  If the HPV vaccine is sometimes causing this disorder it is not causing it enough to increase the rate of the disorder.  As mentioned earlier GBS does not cause mental retardation and it is the only mental disorder associated with the HPV vaccine.  [2]

Michelle Bachmann should apologize publicly for making such an unsubstantiated medically dangerous claim.