Merck & Co., Inc.'s HPV Vaccine Gardasil Shown Safe in Kaiser Permanente Study

Merck & Co. (MRK)’s Gardasil, the human papillomavirus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, was shown to be safe in the second large-scale study in the past year of side effects since the drug was approved six years ago. Fainting and infection were among short-term side effects in a U.S. government-required study of 190,000 females in Kaiser Permanente’s California insurance system who were tracked for 60 days after receiving the HPV vaccine. The study today in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine showed patients were six times more likely to have fainted the day of the shot than in the following weeks and 1.8 times more likely to report a skin and subcutaneous tissue infection in the two weeks after.

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