Merck's [HPV] vaccine tied to 3 deaths [Company lobbied states for shots to be required]

WND ^ | 05.24.07 | Bob Unruh

[Ethrane]

While I am not defending Merck, reading stuff like this and then the 'educated' comments that follow make me crazy.

There is something in logic that is a 'classic' fallacy, and it goes like this:

A follows B; therefore B caused A (in latin 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc' I think).

Some lady has a vaccine and then 2 weeks later dies of 'coronary artery thrombosis' with changes highly suggestive of a chronic heart condition...and the vaccine is necessarily to blame? It might be, but it wouldn't be first on my differential diagnosis.

Vaccines all have risks...if you want the vaccine to try and get the protective benefit, you have to accept the risks (like possible Guillan-Barre with an attenuated/live virus base). For something like this that is not a public health menace the government should have no business dictating it's necessity...but still, people need to accept that NO vaccine is 100% safe.

The evidence that the vaccine caused the deaths listed in this case is circumspect at this point to say the least...but that doesn't keep those opposed to the vaccine (and the lawyers) from trumpeting the association in the furtherance of their agenda.

Be careful people...there may come a time that a vaccine is needed (and everyone will be clamoring for assuming the associated risk as the disease will be far worse)...and running the vaccine businesses out of business is not a prudent course.

[Diogenesis]

You are defending Merck.

First the ‘ladies’ you claim were MINORS some of them
13 and 14. The normally die of accidents.

Second, vaccines ought to be about 100% safe if they
are used for a disease which otherwise generally
CURABLE (like cervical cancer) and which impacts only
a very small number of women.

Most of those vaccinated would have never got
cervical cancer in the first place, so there better
be almost NO risk.

Finally, since you are defending Merck, how many
women and little girls were treated to get about 1500
with reportable symptoms, signs and some deaths?
5000?, 20,000? [Do you think this number matters?]

[IncPen]

ping

[kittymyrib]

Thank God the Texas legislators refused to let our blow-dried idiot of a governor, Perry, endanger the lives of sixth-grade girls in Texas when he ruled this vaccine would be required in Texas schools.
We would not have had enough money in Texas to pay all the lawsuits this moron would have been responsible for.

[weegee]

Men are also getting cancer from HPV (see the articles on oral sex in recent months).

Any reason why this vaccine was only being forced on women? Would it not work on men? Was it easier to shove it down the throats of Americans by claiming this is a “women’s issue” thereby taking it off the table for discussion?

[Diogenesis]

not sure it was a man/woman thing rather than
a company seeking younger targets.

the vaccine was FORCED onto prepubertal girls because
the women who took it got painful menses, spontaneous
abortions, infertility, strokes, death.

the company thought younger, more docile girls
would be better candidates if FORCED to take it by the
state. another advantage, there were already thousands
of complaints in older women, so perhaps the prepubertal
girls would at least not have the painful periods.

[Tax-chick]

My point in post 18 was that all the risk was borne by women, even though common sense tells us that women generally contract HPV through relations with men. If Merck, state governments, etc., are truly concerned, they would want the vaccine to be used by anyone who might contract the virus.

[Tax-chick]

Iirc, one of the arguments against this vaccine is that, in spite of the warnings, women who receive the vaccine will believe they can’t get cervical cancer, and therefore won’t get Pap tests. With early detection, cervical cancer is highly treatable, but it won’t be detected if women don’t get the test.

[Politicalmom]

People like you say “anecdotal evidence” when a perfectly healthy child gets a shot and keels over dead. NOTHING is EVER good enough evidence for you.

[darkangel82]

Don’t bother arguing with statists, they won’t listen.

[drlevy88]

It would indeed be well to compare the ill effects documented following administration of Gardasil to that for other vaccines, since as you point out there could be some nonzero possibility of the ill effects happening anyhow.

But given the vigorous opposition to virtually ALL vaccines by a certain segment of the body politic, especially where mercury is involved, it is strange indeed that few such problems have been publicized in connection with non-Gardasil vaccines. Gardasil is genuinely looking like it is a big problem.

[leda]

i tend to doubt it. this vaccine is targeted
at very young girls, not likely to have been
exposed to the hpv virus.

[leda]

our daughter is just 6 yrs old and i am not convinced
she will ever get the vaccine. i’m not a big fan of
vaccines, in general, so when a new vaccine pops up
with very little long term research and it’s being
forced down your throat, i get very resistant.

[MountainFlower]

Thanks for the thread!

I was emailing and phoning our state legislators when it first came up. Then the day they were voting on it, the drug company pulled the lobbyists in DC and I was on the phone again! They didn't care.

They claim it is no big deal because it is optional in SD...however, I had a local clinic try to PUSH it on my 12 yo when we went in for something totally unrelated. optional?!

I would like to know how much money was given to each of the state's Governors to push this thing.

Thanks for posting this thread!

[Coleus]

We know from many studies that women that have circumcised partners have a lower rate of cervical cancer, >>

We do? Please share them with us.

but notice no one is suggesting that we force all males no matter the age to be circumcised. >>>

I hear the violins playing. There is a solution, don’t have sex with uncircumcised males. Don’t have more than one partner, there are also studies that women with multiple sex partners have a greater risk of cervical cancer. Women should keep their legs closed; it’s that simple. Monogamy is the way. No woman will get HPV if she and her husband stay monogamous with each other. Abstinence until marriage and monogamy through marriage, it works.

[MountainFlower]

"No state ought to be so ethically or fiscally irresponsible as to mandate this vaccine."

Unfortunately, there are states that have and are. I heard that DC was going to require it for girls at the age of 9!! I hope this information causes the states to STOP it!

[ears_to_hear]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/346/15/1105

http://general-medicine.jwatch.org/cgi/content/citation/2002/430/4

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2817902.html

Now you know too.

So do we circumcise all the males in Texas?

[MountainFlower]

I second that thought!!

[MountainFlower]

#6. i don't think that would be a fair assumption to make...hold the company responsible! it is not the fault of the child, or woman who died. our society makes it so easy to shrug off the responsibility and push the blame onto someone else. the drug is faulty! if it were your 11 or 12 yo daughter that suddenly died from it, how would you feel about that statement you made??

the legislators also need to be held responsible for not digging into it before passing the bill! (especially when their constituents were raising a cry about it, and they were ignoring it!)

[MountainFlower]

perhaps the issue should be this --- the vaccine study was NOT done on the age of girls they are saying it has to be given to! at that age, their hormones are totally out of whack and they are hitting puberty. this will also effect the vaccine, will it not? so a drug is being recommended for an age bracket that it has not even been properly test for!

then lets get into long term effects! how long has the drug been available? have they studied it over a period of 20-30 years to know what effect it will have on the babies of girls that were given this drug? NO. Case in point...DES! It was available in about 40 different names, and given to women to stop their lactating, among other things. If given to a mother while a female baby is still in the womb, that drug then not only effected the mother it was given to but also the baby girl she was carrying AND -- the eggs in that baby girl's ovaries for the next generation! We are JUST NOW seeing the huge effects of DES.

so this vaccine was to help deal with a cancer issue that strikes women in their early to mid 20's...yet the vaccine will not even be strong enough, at that point in their life, to do what it was tauted to do.

further, this vaccine will only effect 4 out of 40 cancers...so how is there a justification for mandatory shots? it is not a virus nearing epidemic proportions that anyone can get(ie. measles, mumps, chickenpox).

then i wonder...why are they making a vaccine for girls, and not for guys?! wouldn't it make sense??

i am currently seeing the effects of DES given to my mother's generation...now effecting my children and grandchildren. i do NOT wish this an ANYONE. this drug (HPV SHOT) should not have been released at this time and MERCK knows it. why do you think they suddenly pulled their lobbyist?

children are precious. their lives should be guarded and protected. sometimes that means even protecting them from things like the HPV shot.

i am done ranting now. i will go sit down.