When Julie Austin decided to give her daughter the Gardasil vaccine, she desperately wanted to protect Sara, then 15, from the human papillomavirus that had caused abnormal Pap smears in other family members. A day after the shot, however, Sara complained that she was dizzy and her head was pounding. "Her doctor said the migraine—the first one Sara ever experienced—could have been caused by Gardasil, but it faded the next day, so I didn't worry," says Austin, of Westfield, Mass. But the headache struck again after Sara's second shot—and again after her third. Then, the crushing pain became constant, causing Sara to miss school, quit the soccer team, and spend weekends in bed.
Her mom now wonders if she made the right decision to vaccinate, even though the Food and Drug Administration insists there's no reason to be worried about Gardasil. "We're monitoring the safety of the HPV vaccine very...
