Europe | U.K. | Health

Thousands of teenage girls enduring debilitating illnesses after routine school cancer vaccination

When Caron Ryalls was asked to sign consent forms so that her then 13-year-old daughter, Emily, could be vaccinated against cervical cancer, she assumed it was the best way to protect Emily’s long-term health. Yet the past four years have turned into a nightmare for the family as Emily soon suffered side effects. Only two weeks after her first HPV injection, the teenager experienced dizziness and nausea. “The symptoms grew increasingly worse after the second and third injections, and I went to A&E several times with severe chest and abdominal pains as well as difficul

Latin America | Peru | Corruption

Peruvian women haunted by forced sterilisation seek state apology

Source: Channel NewsAsia

Government health workers spent hours going from door to door to coax, cajole and bully women in a farming community in Peru's highlands to come with them for free medical treatment. Esperanza Huayama, then three months pregnant, was one of scores of women who clambered onto buses that morning 20 years ago for the three-hour ride to a clinic. Lying in a hospital bed, Huayama soon realised something was wrong - but it was too late. Moments later doctors administered anaesthetic and when she woke up, Huayama had been sterilised - victim of a birth control campaign targeting mostly indig