Abbey Colohan from Kells, Co. Meath was just 13-yrs-old when she received the Gardasil HPV vaccine last year at her school.
The school girl immediately had a bad reaction to the vaccine and for over an hour, she felt extremely ill. Abbey had a seizure and her parents were sent for to come to the school.
When her father got to the school, he queried why an ambulance wasn’t called for. He was allegedly told that the effects would soon wear off.
Two days after the vaccine, the girl returned to school and had another seizure. This time she was taken to Our Lady Our Lourdes (OLOL) in Drogheda where she was admitted for almost a week. After various tests, doctors were still none the wiser as to Abbey’s adverse reaction.
Abbey’s story is part of a TV3 special tonight at 10pm. It looks into the possible side effects the vaccine, which is an attempt to stop cervical cancer, has on many girls who believe they have chronic illnesses as a result of receiving the vaccine.
Some 170,000 girls have been vaccinated since 2010 and this show is an attempt to air the voices of some girls and now young women who want to see much stronger evidence that the vaccine doesn’t have side effects.