Street News Service - Photo Story (Feed 206)

The vaccination debate

The city of Rotterdam organised a large event for cervical cancer vaccination in the Ahoy arena. However, the attendance was poor, only a third of all invited girls in the age range 13 to 16 turned up to get their vaccination. Country wide the attendance is approximately 60 percent. The public health council thinks that negative publicity about possibly side effects has kept the majority of girls from getting their shot. The vaccine was reported to cause infertility, cancer or even be lethal, but these claims are not true according to the health organisation. Some girls couldn’t sleep for days dreading the vaccination, others thought nothing about it.

Story and pictures by Rokus van den Bout, Straat, the Netherlands, © Street News Service: www.street-papers.org. [Pictures are available in high resolution, please email sns@street-papers.org]