Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support vaccination for the HPV and the benefits it can bring to young girls, young women and boys. My colleague said that we must trust the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA, the European Medicines Agency, the HSE and all of our physicians, and of course we want to do so. It is not a case of scaremongering or anything like that, but I remember when many of us here in this House and the Seanad, where I was at the time, as well as wider society, trusted the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the European Commission, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, the ratings agencies, and most economists of the day. We paid a very heavy price in this country for not listening to dissenting voices. While we cannot ignore expertise and knowledge from all of these great organisations, it would be foolish in the extreme for us to effectively dismiss those people who are suffering symptoms which they believe are connected in some way to this vaccine. There are other vaccinations like Pandemrix, as well as issues with Lyme disease and so on, around which we could listen more to dissenting voices and do what we can to embrace the needs of those people.

The patient information leaflet which accompanies Gardasil 1 effectively states that 2.3% of patients suffered severe side-effects. For Gardasil 9, which is the newer model, that figure is 2.5%. That proves that there are serious side effects, because their own patient information says as much. Among those serious side effects are swollen glands, joint pain, unusual tiredness, weakness or confusion, chills, generally feeling unwell, leg pain, shortness of breath, chest pain, aching muscles, muscle weakness, seizure, bad stomach ache, bleeding or bruising more easily than normal, skin infection and fainting.

In Ireland, there have been 1,100 reports to the HPRA of serious side effects. There have been 20,000 reported in Europe and 84,000 worldwide. The people concerned are not dreaming this up. I have outlined the symptoms they are feeling. They are listed in the patient information leaflet for the very drug, yet we are choosing not to embrace the fact that, here in Ireland, approximately 400 young girls are complaining about these issues. As I said, there have been 1,100 cases. We are giving them paracetamol and telling them to go home and that the problem is in their mind. We are telling them to see a physician or shrink and not to be talking down what is, in effect, a very useful and good vaccine.

As I said, I am in favour of vaccines and I am in favour of a vaccine for this disease. In Denmark, the authorities have ceased to use the drug in question. In Japan, they have stopped using public vaccination. It is only available privately now. This very week there was a conference on this matter in Japan at which Ireland was represented.

Let me return to the dissenting voices. There has been a lot of discrediting by those associated with mainstream medicine. I have been shown tweets, Facebook posts and so on from established names we see on television in this country effectively abusing the people affected and their families, who are struggling in very difficult times.

Some of the responses to parliamentary questions that were passed on to me — I am not sure whether this was by the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, or her colleague — state the Government is putting in place an established pathway for the people in question. It is stated the HSE is currently working to put in place a clinical care pathway appropriate to the medical needs of this group. The group is called REGRET, as many will know. What stage are we at in this regard? Are we providing meaningful treatments to those concerned? Are we providing medications to them? Are we providing financial support where some have had to go abroad for treatment, to the Czech Republic and elsewhere?

Just because we listen to dissenting voices does not mean we are rubbishing an entire treatment. We have learned our lessons financially in this country from not listening to them in the past. I beseech the Minister of State not to let those dissenting voices fall on deaf ears. As stated in the patient information leaflet, the side effects are real and acknowledged by the company.

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