Amid a tense line of questioning through the first day of affirmation hearings, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated he would hold his monetary stake in pending litigation centered on Gardasil, a vaccine meant to stop cervical most cancers, which might be brought on by the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
On Thursday, below questioning by Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, Mr. Kennedy declined to disavow feedback he had made disparaging the vaccine as unsafe and as one thing that no mum or dad ought to give to a toddler. (Unexpectedly, he additionally appeared to say that he had surrendered his monetary stake within the litigation.)
Mr. Kennedy has typically singled out Gardasil in his critiques of vaccines, suggesting that its elements improve the danger of most cancers, result in autoimmune circumstances and could also be chargeable for an increase in psychological sickness.
The Youngsters’s Well being Protection, a nonprofit co-founded by Mr. Kennedy, referred to as the vaccine “one of the vital harmful vaccines ever authorized.”
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, which displays the unwanted side effects and ongoing security of vaccines like Gardasil, disagrees with that characterization, noting that the physique of scientific proof “overwhelmingly helps their security.”
Earlier than the Gardasil vaccine was authorized by federal regulators in 2014, it underwent prolonged medical trials with greater than 15,000 contributors.
C.D.C. monitoring has revealed some minor unwanted side effects, mostly dizziness, nausea, headache and fever. And in extraordinarily uncommon instances, there have been extra severe unwanted side effects documented, like Guillain-Barré syndrome.
However the vaccine can be remarkably efficient at stopping most cancers — roughly 97 p.c efficient in stopping cervical most cancers, and almost one hundred pc efficient in stopping exterior genital warts.
The C.D.C. is at the moment conducting analysis into the connection between all vaccinations and sure circumstances like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and power fatigue syndrome.
However present research present that HPV vaccines trigger “no elevated threat” of power fatigue syndrome and do “not assist a causal hyperlink” between Gardasil and POTS.
