By Jan Disley
A mother who is planning legal action against a pharmaceutical giant – claiming her daughter was left partially paralysed after having an anti-cancer vaccine – has been told the teenager is to be put on the social services ‘at-risk’ register.
Cheryl Cave says allegations that she is abusing her 13-year-old daughter Ashleigh are an attempt to ‘shut her up’ as she is demanding an investigation into the safety of a drug used to protect girls against the HPV virus that causes cervical cancer.
Ashleigh collapsed shortly after being given the jab at school and has spent nearly a year in hospital.
Ashleigh Cave, picture with mum Sheryl, was left paralysed
from the waist down after taking a cervical cancer drug
Ms Cave, 38, is now consulting lawyers about taking action against pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and wants a full investigation into the safety of the drug Cervarix. She is being supported by lawyer Peter Todd, who is launching a multi-million-pound action on behalf of about ten teenage girls in the UK, including Ashleigh.
Ashleigh, from Liverpool, has been unable to walk unaided since having the jab last October and is an in-patient at Liverpool’s Alder Hey hospital. Tests have failed to find anything physically wrong. Doctors say Ashleigh is suffering from ‘learned illness’ behaviour and have called in social services.
A report from Sefton Council accuses Ms Cave of fabricating Ashleigh’s illness and says: ‘Children’s Services recommend that Ashleigh becomes subject to a Child Protection Plan under the criteria of emotional harm.’
But Ms Cave says it is nothing more than an attempt to keep her quiet and is desperate to warn other parents about the vaccine.
She said: ‘At first, they tried to tell us Ashleigh was imagining it. They even suggested
I may have Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. They have now told me Ashleigh is to be placed on the at-risk register, and that I am abusing her mentally. I refuse to let their threats silence us.’
Ms Cave believes her daughter may have been poisoned by aluminium in the drug.
The HPV school vaccination programme followed clinical trials in 2005 on more than 18,000 women under the age of 26.
Last night, both GlaxoSmithKline and the Department of Health said there was no evidence that the vaccine carried any long-term side effects.
No one was available at Sefton Council to comment on the case.
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