Gardakill?

I read this post over at momlogic about some recent deaths and miscarriages in conjunction with the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccination.  But what I especially found interesting about it was this quote by OB/Gyn, Dr. Jennifer Ashton: "If a patient leaves a doctor's office after getting the vaccine and is killed in a car accident, that's reported as a vaccine related death. A death of any kind within a certain period of time after receiving the vaccine will always be reported as vaccine related."   Is that true? and if it is, well it's no wonder that it is so difficult to get true reliable statistics surrounding such topics.

Comments

[Dr. Kitty]

See this link for more info: http://vaers.hhs.gov/info.htm. This explains the CDC's "Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System" or VAERS. Under this program, yes, the quote from Dr. Ashton is true. "Doctors and other vaccine providers are encouraged to report ALL adverse events following vaccinations, whether or not they believe that the vaccination was the cause." It is then up to the CDC to analyze all of these reports to determine if there is an association between a particular vaccination and a particular adverse event. If there is an association, they recall the vaccine until further studies can be done to show whether or not the association is causal or not. So yes, we as doctors are instructed to report ANY and EVERY adverse event, it doesn't matter if WE think it might be causally related or not. Personally, I don't think it would cross my mind to report the adverse event she suggested in her example, but technically, she's right.