Cervical vaccine: a question of choice

IN her letter (October 19), Nora Bennis claims I unfairly accuse Mothers Alliance Ireland of having a hidden agenda (Letters, September 24).

In her defence she claims her organisation just wants “vaccines to be safe, effective, necessary and affordable”.

She then goes on to apply these criteria to the HPV vaccine Gardasil in a very one-sided and scientifically unbalanced way.

If her claim has any merit whatsoever, perhaps she could tell us of any other vaccine to which her organisation is willing to apply the same criteria? Preferably one that has nothing to do with protecting teenagers from sexually related conditions where abstinence is her preferred approach?

She has the choice to prevent her children having the vaccination. Why is she and her organisation trying to remove that choice from me?

Andrew Doyle

Lislevane

Bandon

Co Cork