HPV Vaccine Myths And Their Relation To The Media

The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) causes several diseases, including cervical cancer, and has been a major concern in the last decade. In 2004, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approved a vaccine that became hugely controversial among the population. Nowadays, media has the responsibility of communicating health facts; therefore, this information passes through different eyes, writers and biases that can change it along its way from scientific research to the opinions of everyday people. There are many controversies that surround the HPV vaccine where facts have been questioned and replaced by myths due to the inaccuracy of the information presented by media. First of all, in order to address this problem, it is important to analyze whether people understand what vaccines and viruses really are and how they work, basic knowledge to have a complete understanding of the controversies. Then, analyzing examples of informative journals about the vaccine and trying to find the sources of myths will give us an idea of the causes and consequences of bad reporting. Moreover, there are reasons to believe that some sources give erroneous information on purpose regardless of their credibility. Even though it might not be the reporter’s intention, they unknowingly report inaccurate information about the HPV virus and vaccine, which might have erroneously changed the perspectives of every day people, leading to myths about the vaccine.

Nowadays, many people lack health knowledge impeding them to spot inaccurate information on media that reports about vaccinations. As shown in a study led by Jenifer D. Allen, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, parents have various misconceptions about vaccines’ mechanisms and their knowledge is mostly related to their position on getting a shot. Professor Allen’s (2010) studies found consequently that parents in favor of vaccinating their daughters had more accurate knowledge about the vaccine. People often forget or just do not know that vaccines are chemical agents that simulate specific chemical shapes present only in a possible invader of our bodies; it is not that vaccines have small quantities of the microorganism that causes the disease. Continuing, our body assumes that it is an invasive agent and initiates the mechanisms of defense, creating antibodies specific for the chemical agent presented by the vaccine. These specific antibodies stay in our body in its immune memory for a couple of years, during which the body will have a rapid and very effective response if infected with the real disease agent, that carries the chemical shape already known by our body. If people would know more about the simple basics of vaccine mechanisms, they could avoid myths such as getting infected by a vaccine such as the one preventing HPV.

Due to the fact that people do not have great knowledge about vaccines, and media is their principle source of information, it is clear that the latter has a huge influence and responsibility. A study at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed average awareness in the population about HPV, some months before and after the media exploded informing about the approval of the vaccine. Not surprisingly, there was a considerable increase from 35% to around 60% of people that related HPV with cervical cancer (Kelly, 2009), indicating that media has a strong influence on people’s knowledge. These results are an example of the power of media and show how it is a constant and rapid way of educating the population. Thus, people will absorb the information they read about HPV, regardless of whether it is accurate or not. Hence, an enormous responsibility is in the reporter’s hands and they must not play around with the information they transmit.

Furthermore, it has been found that reporters tend to analyze erroneously statistical data when writing articles about HPV that could start myths among the population. It is common to hear that the HPV vaccine is not well tested and that it has unknown side effects. Also, reports have been found where the HPV vaccine is related to rare neurological ailments that can lead to death. Here, the biggest mistake of the writers was that they did not realize that correlation does not imply causation. This is a basic principle of statistics. This means that even though the numbers of those dying of neurological illnesses have increased at the same time as vaccination usage, it does not mean at all that one causes the other. We just do not know all the variables that govern the increase and cause of some neurological damages. For instance, global warming has also been increasing rapidly through the last decades but it does not imply that vaccination causes global warming or that rises in average temperatures of the earth make more children develop autism. Reporters have to be careful in what they link, especially with statistical data, in order to not create misconceptions for their readers.

While reporters creating misconceptions is a part of the problem, another issue is the general speed with which information about the vaccine is spread by media, independently from the veracity of its content, which is very difficult to verify for everyday people. As shown again by the study from the University of Pennsylvania, the number of articles about HPV triplicated within days after the announcement of the approval of the vaccine, demonstrating the high velocity with which information travels in our modern society (Kelly, 2009). Thousands of articles were written every day citing each other and, due to their speed, it would have been quite difficult to assume that those articles really checked their sources. In fact, that the information about the HPV vaccine was spread out with such velocity is positive since people have to be aware of the advances of health and theoretically act according to them. However, there are very few ways for people to verify the veracity of the information presented, cited and referenced in the articles they read every day. There are not so many sources where people can get informed about the scientist’s point of view about HPV and these sources are complicated to explore and not well known. Hence, the majority’s awareness will mainly depend again on the media since the way it spreads out is more efficient than the people’s way to verify the contents of their readings.

Moreover, in the long term, aside from the speed of the media, some information about the vaccines, HPV or any other, sticks around for more time than others and sometimes this can be an inaccurate fact. For instance, the case of the fraudulent research of Andrew Wakefield and be included in the discussion. This used-to-be-called scientist was famous for his article in which he showed scientific proof of a link between vaccines and autism. His article, published in 1998, was fully rejected in 2010 by The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical research journals. This was not the main problem, however. A study by the University of California-Davis published the article A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted articles from the Scholarly Literature, where it is shown that the fraudulent work of Wakefield was cited 758 times (Grieneisen, 2012). Unfortunately, this number is of citations in scientific papers, meaning that in media, this information may have been used thousands of times. Even though it is advantageous that important information like the need of the HPV vaccine keeps on scattering, erroneous data can also be dangerously widespread, enhancing myths and misconceptions through time.

But whom should we trust? From all the information we receive about the HPV vaccine, it is almost impossible to determine who is right from all the articles, studies and reports available. In our modern world anyone could write whatever they want on the Internet and no one could stop them. One of the most important examples is the web page of Dr. Mercola, an osteopathic physician, who states that some vaccines, like the one preventing HPV, and other common medical procedures are a fraud and also promotes different products that people should buy from him instead. He presents his information without scientific foundations and he has already received various letters from the FDA asking him to stop illegal clams about the uses and purpose of his products but legally no one can stop him. Anyone could create a web site that seems to have the highest credibility possible and we would have strong difficulties discerning validity, though it is still possible to do so. No matter how good looking a source can be, we can always check the credibility by confirming the references until we can compare the information with a source we are sure is not making things up.

Unfortunately, well known sources can also be corrupted and capitalism comes to play an enormous roll in the credibility discussion. Even though there are people we should believe because of their knowledge and position on an issue, we do not know the secondary intentions behind them. For example, we do not know if there is a business that depends on the word of these people. Sadly, vaccines are not an exception and their production is also a huge business. In the article HPV vaccine: The science behind the controversy, Richard Knox, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter focused on vaccination, quotes Dr. Diane Harper, professor at the University of Missouri, who actually worked on the research papers that lead to the vaccine’s approval, and she states that “Ninety-five percent of women who are infected with HPV never, ever get cervical cancer … It seemed very odd to be mandating something for which 95 percent of infections never amount to anything.” (as cited in Knox, 2011, Minnesota public radio, para. 20).This gives the impression that there are means not focused on people’s health but rather on the business behind the vaccine. Moreover, Dr. Harper also expresses that “Pap smear screening is far and away the biggest thing a woman can do to protect herself, to prevent cervical cancer” (as cited in Knox, 2011, Minnesota public radio, para. 21) showing again the irrelevance of encouraging millions of people to spend hundreds of dollars in the vaccine. Thus, it will always be difficult to believe a source with a hundred percent of certainty. So, even though there are people we should believe in, we will never know if they have been bought for economical reasons.

Finally, after analyzing and evaluating various pieces of evidence, it is evident that media has an enormous responsibility in informing people about the facts around vaccination. Since there can always be the possibility to doubt all possible sources because of either fake credibility or bought morals, it is really difficult to judge and state who is at fault for misconceptions. But, there is strong evidence that reporters make false assumptions and provide erroneous or incomplete information about HPV vaccination to the reader, which can lead to him or her making an incorrect decision. Unfortunately, reporters and people do not realize the importance of good and clear communication, especially for health, where each one of us has to make the right decision as a community to improve social welfare. In other words, we all have to agree on making certain decisions, like taking the vaccine or not, in order to eradicate the pathogen as soon as possible. Controversies due to wrong information are always going to exist, but if reporters get a better understanding of analyzing statistical data and biological and health concepts, they could improve the way they present information and everyday people would be more conscious about the right decision to make for their child and themselves.

References:

1. Knox R. (2011). HPV vaccine: the science behind the controversy. Minnesota Public Radio. Retrieved October 18, 2013, from http://www.npr.org/2011/09/19/140543977/hpv-vaccine-the-science-behind-the-controversy

2. Bridget J. K., et all. (2009). The HPV vaccine and the media: How has the topic been covered and what are the effects on knowledge about the virus and cervical cancer?. Patient Education and Consulting Journal. Vol 77. 308–313.

3. Destefano F. (2007). Vaccines and autism: evidence does not support causal association. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Journal. Vol 82. 756–759

4. Grieneisen M.L., Zhang M. (2012), A comprehensive Survey of retracted Articles from Scholarly Literature. PloS ONE, 7 (10), art. No. e44118

5. Zhang C., Gotsis M., Jordan-Marsh M. (2013). Social Media Microblogs as an HPV Vaccination forum. Human Vaccine Imminother, Jul 10;9 (11).

6. Castellsagué X., de Sanjosé S. (2008). HPV and cervical cancer: screening or vaccination?. British Journal of Cancer. January; 98(1)15

7. Downs, J.C. et all. (2007). Parent’s vaccination comprehension and decisions, Vaccine; 26, pag. 1595–1607.

8. Dr. Mercola. (2013.) Oncology Dietitian Exposes Fraud in CDC’s HPV Vaccine Effectiveness Study. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/16/hpv-vaccine-effectiveness.aspx