Can You Spot the Propaganda in This Post About HPV Vaccines and Cervical Cancer?
It might save your life or the life of someone you love!
There is very little doubt anymore that HPV vaccines are helping to bring down rates of cervical cancer. Well, little doubt except among anti-vaccine influencers who are still pushing propaganda and trying to convince folks that vaccines don’t work!
Consider this recent post from a fella who thinks he has proven that vaccines don’t work!
Can You Spot the Propaganda in This Post About HPV Vaccines and Cervical Cancer?
Of course, he is wrong.
Now, how quickly can you figure out why he is wrong?
Let’s start with the claim about “the lack of decline in cervical cancer deaths among Asian populations” that he is talking about.
Is that even true?
If you check the CDC Wonder database, which was the source for the original data in his charts, you can very easily see that it isn’t true!
So lesson one, as you become more skeptical and learn to spot anti-vaccine propaganda, is to double-check all the sources that anti-vaccine influencers are citing.
Are they making up the data that they are using to claim that vaccines don’t work?
If not, look to see if they:
cherry-pick parts of a study
make up fake quotes
misuse studies - this is a very common one, as they figure no one is going to actually read the study to double-check what they are claiming
get papers published as pre-prints and get people to think that they are real studies
get studies published in low-quality, predatory, pay-to-publish journals and get people to think that they are a reliable study in a high-impact journal
exaggerate and embellish statements to make vaccines sound dangerous, like when a study cites a risk of febrile seizures, which are typically benign, all they talk about is a risk for deadly seizures
lie with statistics, like when they try to hide the number of people who routinely died with measles (400 to 500 each and every year) just before we had vaccines by saying deaths were already down 90%
misuse charts and graphs to make you think vaccines don’t work
act like they are just asking questions, when they are really just pushing anti-vaccine talking points
make up false claims about secrets you aren’t supposed to know
Or maybe they are just lying!
Remember when Bobby Kennedy gave credit to the WIC program for eliminating measles deaths, instead of the measles vaccine?
The only problem with his claim is the first WIC site didn’t open until 1974!
The other problem is that no one called him out on it…
HPV Vaccines Work
Anyway, we know that HPV vaccines work.
“No cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women immunized at 12 or 13 years of age irrespective of the number of doses.”
Invasive cervical cancer incidence following bivalent human papillomavirus vaccination: a population-based observational study of age at immunization, dose, and deprivation
They are working so well that many countries have moved to a one-dose schedule!
“Targeted HPV vaccine promotion and services for this population are needed to mitigate current and future health disparities and promote health equity.”
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences in the Timing of Initiating the HPV Vaccine in the United States: the Case of Southeast Asian Americans
Unfortunately, Asian Americans, who do have higher rates of HPV-associated cervical cancers because of lower rates of screening, also seem to have lower rates of HPV vaccination.
Lower rates of vaccination that likely won’t improve if anti-vaccine influencers continue to push this kind of racist propaganda about vaccines.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System, Mortality 1999-2020 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released in 2021. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2020, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10.html on Mar 25, 2025 2:13:24 PM
Jun J. Cancer/health communication and breast/cervical cancer screening among Asian Americans and five Asian ethnic groups. Ethn Health. 2020 Oct;25(7):960-981. doi: 10.1080/13557858.2018.1478952. Epub 2018 May 23. PMID: 29792075.
Palmer TJ, Kavanagh K, Cuschieri K, Cameron R, Graham C, Wilson A, Roy K. Invasive cervical cancer incidence following bivalent human papillomavirus vaccination: a population-based observational study of age at immunization, dose, and deprivation. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2024 Jun 7;116(6):857-865. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djad263. PMID: 38247547.
Truong-Vu KP. Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences in the Timing of Initiating the HPV Vaccine in the United States: the Case of Southeast Asian Americans. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2024 Aug;11(4):2210-2223. doi: 10.1007/s40615-023-01689-0. Epub 2023 Aug 2. PMID: 37531020.
Daniel-Ulloa J, Gilbert PA, Parker EA. Human Papillomavirus Vaccination in the United States: Uneven Uptake by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation. Am J Public Health. 2016 Apr;106(4):746-7. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.303039. Epub 2016 Feb 18. PMID: 26890185; PMCID: PMC4816000.