Gardasil for your teen -- yes or no?

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News from the nonprofit group Judicial Watch of reported side effects to the vaccine Gardasil likely aren’t making decisions any easier for parents of adolescent and teenage girls. Here you have a vaccine that protects against major strains of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer. Regardless of what parents might desire regarding their offspring’s sexual behavior, many would see the vaccination as welcome health insurance.

Yet the decision is complicated in light of such matters as the very effective screen (Pap smear) already available for cervical cancer, plus suggestions that the rates of cervical cancer might not be lowered by the vaccine after all, and now reported events that happened after girls received vaccinations, such as, on the mild end, nausea, and on the extreme end, 31 cases of the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome and 15 deaths.

You can read about these reports, made to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, here. But note: According to the program, which is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, cause and effect between vaccination and such reported events haven’t been established. ‘Just because a health problem is reported to VAERS does not mean it was caused by a vaccine .... sometimes people who are vaccinated get sick from another cause unrelated to the vaccine,’ the website notes.

We’re wondering what parents think. It would be understandable if some parents who were persuaded by the commercials -- which all but said ‘get this vaccine for your kid if you want to be a good parent’ -- are now having second thoughts. Write and let us know what’s on your mind.

-- Rosie Mestel