Concerns about safety and side effects

Concerns about safety and side effects for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — one of the newest shots recommended for adolescents — has increased among parents: 16% cited these fears as the main reason they did not have their daughters vaccinated in 2010, up from 5% in 2008, a new study finds. And the percentage of parents who said they did not intend to vaccinate their daughters against HPV in the next 12 months also grew, from 40% in 2008 to 41% in 2009 to 44% in 2010, even as parents reported increasing physician recommendations to get the shot, says the study in April's Pediatrics, released online Monday. (Although now recommended for both girls and boys at age 11 or 12, the HPV vaccine was not widely prescribed for males at the time.) HPV, a family of sexually transmitted viruses linked to tumors of the cervix, head and neck and several organs, is passed on through genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex, but can also be passed on during oral sex. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HPV vaccines offer the best protection to girls and boys who receive all three vaccine doses and have time to develop an immune response before being sexually active with another person. Parental anxiety over the safety of other new adolescent vaccines — the tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis booster Tdap, (and a version called Td without the pertussis portion) and the meningococcal disease shot MCV4 — did not show a similar increase.