Gardasil, the FDA approved drug against some strains of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), has been the cause of almost 8000 complaints which range from nausea, to paralysis and even death. The drug manufacturer Merck though claims Gardasil has almost no side effects and has the potential to eliminate most cervical cancers.

The drug was approved for usage in girls by the FDA in June 2006 but it has refused to approve its use for women in the age group of 27-45 years.

Recently the drug was in the news as a 13 year girl is said to be suffering from a degenerative muscle disease and paralysis after receiving the vaccine. Two other girls with the same allegations against the drug have filed lawsuits.

Experts feel that the drug has not gone through enough testing to ensure the safety to users.

Dr. Diane Harper, a professor at Dartmouth College and a top expert on the HPV, was a researcher on study trials for the drug Gardasil. She felt that enough checking had not been done on Gardasil to be sure that there were no side effects of the drug particularly when given to young girls. “We don’t know yet what’s going to happen when millions of doses of the vaccine have been given and to put in place a process that says you must have this vaccine, it means you must be part of a big public experiment. So we can’t do that until we have more data,” she said.