I think it's fair to blame the system (doctors, medical publishing, etc) for inadequate warnings about treatments. I think it's unfair to blame ourselves for not digging out every obscure reference before swallowing whichever pill a doctor prescribed, at least until we learned about the flaws in the system. I expect that most people who haven't experienced harm from treatments simply accept prescriptions, believing the gloss (This will solve your problems and is perfectly safe!). I certainly thought the medical system would be there to help me if I ever needed it. Quite a shock to find out the reality.
Before you accepted the HPV vaccine, were you aware of the inadequacies of warnings or the exaggeration of the scares (If you don't get vaccinated, terrible things might happen!)? As I said, hindsight is wonderful, but it doesn't mean that your decision you made without hindsight was wrong based on what you knew at the time. Life is a learning experience. You've learned to not accept treatments--especially ones that aren't absolutely necessary--without doing your own research. Hopefully you haven't learned that all medical treatments are to be avoided at all costs. Some are useful and generally safe, some aren't all that useful and have significant risks. Even the ones that have a high probability of benefits and very low risk of harm can still cause harm in a few individuals. I'm not sure that any treatment is 100% safe, and there's no way to predict those rare cases.
Then again, you can make immense effort into avoiding potentially harmful treatments, and health risks ... and trip in your home and die. There's a balance between risk avoidance and enjoying life.
I didn't know in advance that I needed to do anything to avoid developing ME, so I can't blame myself for doing whatever it is I did or didn't do. You didn't know what you should or shouldn't have done regarding vaccinations. If you had done some research into the HPV vaccination, you might--or might not--have decided against it, depending on which information you accessed.
Even if you now do research into treatments as in-depth as possible, you can't guarantee that a treatment that seems really safe won't have a unique response that makes your ME worse or even triggers some other nasty disease. There's no guarantee that not trying a treatment won't result in worsening. No guarantees in life.
