Why Japan’s HPV vaccine rates dropped from 70% to near zero - Vox

A doctor who has been battling anti-vaccine campaigners in Japan just won a prestigious award for standing up for science.

Riko Muranaka, of Kyoto University, was awarded the 2017 John Maddox prize for her work uncovering the pseudoscience at the heart of widespread fear in Japan about the HPV vaccine. The prestigious prize is awarded each year by the journal Nature, the Kohn Foundation, and the charity Sense about Science, to a person who promotes sound evidence in the face of hostility.

Muranaka’s story explains how vaccine panic takes off — and how hard it can be to undo, even with the best-intentioned efforts.

In Japan, coverage rates for the HPV vaccine have plummeted from 70 percent in 2013 to less than 1 percent today. This happened after a preliminary (and allegedly fraudulent) mouse study showing the vaccine caused brain damage was spread by the media, along with unconfirmed video reports of girls in wheelchairs and having seizures after getting immunized...

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