ABBEY COLOHAN FROM Kells, county Meath, was 13 years old when she received the Gardasil HPV vaccine at her secondary school last year.
She immediately had an adverse reaction to it. For over an hour, the teenage girl lay on a mat on the floor of the school while the other girls were being vaccinated.
During this time she had seizure-like jerking, rolling eyes, blurred vision, headache and nausea. After an hour and twenty minutes her parents were called to pick her up.
When her father arrived at the school and asked why an ambulance hadn’t been called he says he was told this would wear off.
Two days after the vaccine Abbey returned to school but took another seizure and was taken by ambulance to Drogheda Hospital Emergency Department and admitted for six days. After numerous blood tests, an MRI, and a lot of scratching of heads she was sent home with no diagnosis and no medication.
Her parents were told they would learn to adjust to their lives and live with the situation. Six months later, they are still waiting to see a neurologist.
Abbey’s story is just one of those featured in a TV3 documentary about teenagers who are convinced their chronic illness is linked to the HPV vaccine Gardasil. The vaccine has already been dropped in Denmark and is the subject of countless legal actions in the US, Australia and here in Ireland.
Since 2010, it has been administered to more than 170,000 secondary school girls across Ireland in an effort to prevent them contracting cervical cancer, which kills an estimated 100 women a year in Ireland and more than a quarter of a million women worldwide every year.
However, some girls who received this vaccine have since suffered from various illnesses. Their parents believe these illnesses are linked to the vaccine, though there is still no medical evidence to confirm a connection. Some of the girls were previously high achievers and physically active in sports and other activities but suddenly, since taking the vaccine, many are now narcoleptic, listless and confined to bed.
Thousands of girls worldwide are suffering similar symptoms, in similar circumstances and strongly believe that it is as a direct result of taking the vaccine.
The one-hour documentary due to air on TV3 at 10pm tomorrow night, will allow viewers to hear the accounts of these girls and will examine the evidence at home and abroad.
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