HPV Safety Chart

[joreth]

Here is a great visual representation of the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, compared to other things, like how many people have gotten sick, what else you could die of, etc. It's not a perfect chart, some of the commenters in the original blog (click the picture to read it) have offered some suggestions on how to improve it, but it's a good snapshot of just how safe the vaccine really is.

Unfortunately, several of the commenters have jumped in with the usual BS about how we don't know anything at all about its longevity potential or how safe it *really* is in the long run, some people have provided anecdotal stories about fainting after getting the shot, and at least one person has thrown in the old line about how we're being "forced" to have unnecessary vaccines like the measels vaccine (look how few kids die of that and they make us take it anyway!), and there's the inevitable "if you just don't have sex with anyone, you won't get sick" fucktard who seems to view STDs as a moral punishment for bad behaviour.

But, aside from that, this is a great visual shorthand way of looking at HPV.  The creator of the chart has indicated that he will be updating the graphic as he is made aware of more data, but I don't know if this graphic itself will update or if we will have to view it on his blog directly, so you might want to take a peek over at he original source.

(oh, and thanks to may_dryad for the link!)

Comments

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Statistics should be represented this way more often. Sadly most people aren't that good at conceiving of the consequences of raw probability numbers.

[joreth]

Yep, I'm reminded of that every time I shout, in bold, capital letters, that several million doses have been given and only 20 deaths have occurred, none of which have been conclusively linked to the vaccine, particularly when the response is "but even one death is too many" directly in the face of all those thousands of deaths due to cervical cancer, all those thousands of women are being sacrificed by those seeking to prohibit the vaccine out of the fear that someone's daughter might someday, somewhere, have a bad reaction and die (or just faint and cry really loudly over her sore arm).

Boy, can I write a run-on sentence or what?

If I were better about making charts, I'd do more of them myself :-)

[the-failed-poet.livejournal.com]

Yay numbers! Yay visual representations of numbers! More people need to see this.

[dorklord07.livejournal.com]

Good visual representation of data!

Question:

Is the 260:1 number for the odds of dying as a result of driving derived by taking the number of total deaths per year and dividing by the number of car accidents, or is it some complex calculation that states that for every 260 people who drive, 1 person dies?

All of a sudden, I was terrified to drive. XD

[joreth]

To be honest, I don't know. The blog where I got this does attempt to explain some of the calculations for some of the results, since there are a bunch of antivaxxers there who demand to know that information for the purpose of disputing it with hogwash and logical fallacies and argumentative circles. But I'm tired and cranky tonight, so I skipped some of the details :-) It matches my preconceived bias about the vaccine, so I reposted it :-D

[datan0de.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, straightforward representation of the data. *Applauds*