The death of two young women who received the cervical cancer vaccination is causing some in the U.K. to question a strategy that calls for hundreds of thousands of schoolgirls to receive the shot next fall, the Daily Mail reports.
The young women who died received the vaccination, marketed under the name Gardasil, in Germany and Austria, respectively. The European Medicines Agency has not released their ages.
The two deaths follow the deaths of three U.S. females, ages 12, 19 and 22, who were reported to have died days after receiving Gardasil, which protects against the human papillomavirus — believed to be the leading cause of cervical cancer — was administered.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reported that 28 women miscarried after receiving the vaccine.
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Neither U.S. nor European health officials have directly linked the deaths or miscarriages to Gardasil. The FDA has said there is no reason to reexamine approval of the drug.
A spokesman for Merck, maker of Gardasil, told the Daily Mail there were no plans to change the company's recommendation on use of the vaccine.
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