Yes! Those are very important points and I certainly do not disagree with cost-benefit analyses or the point about what should be compared. Since HPV-caused oral cancers is second only to tobacco-caused oral cancers (and that number is dropping from smoking dropping), and since *that* has a MUCH lower survival rate due to poor screening, even without the specific numbers in front of me, I'm willing to bet that the outcome will be in favor of Gardasil in a cost-benefit analysis.

Although, in this race to find proof that Gardasil is harmful, there have been several studies now that have found children as young as 4 years old with HPV, after ruling out sexual abuse. It's just so damn easy to transmit that assessing the likelihood of being exposed to it based on behaviour trends isn't quite as useful.

Plus, much like predicting who will have healthcare in the future, predicting which children will "need" Gardasil in the event that it only has a 5 year lifespan is also going to be difficult.

But, the point still stands that 20 people is, as you say, a very small percentage out of 7 million even if you ignore the fact that the majority of them can conclusively be tied to other causes.

Hell, having a population of 7 million people AT ALL and having only 20 of them dying AT ALL is pretty damn rare!