Posted on 10/29/2007 5:50:52 AM PDT by NYer
EIGHT deaths have been linked to the cervical cancer jab which will be given to every 12-year-old girl in Britain under Government plans announced last week. Doctors suspect the jab, which protects against a sexually transmitted human papilloma virus that causes the cancer, may be implicated in 3,461 adverse reactions, including paralysis and seizures.
Last week Health Secretary Alan Johnson revealed plans to vaccinate all girls aged between 12 and 13 to cut Britain’s death rate from the disease. He said: “Prevention is better than cure and this vaccine will prevent many women from catching the virus in the first place.”
However, reports from the US, where the Gardasil vaccine has been used for nearly a year in some states, reveal that eight victims died soon after receiving it. The victims, aged from as young as 11 to 22, suffered blood clots or heart attacks.
Thousands of side effects have also been linked, many serious. These include 15 cases of paralysis and 239 cases of temporary loss of consciousness. Other suspected reactions include convulsions and numbness. In one case Jessica Vega, 14, from Gardnerville, California, became paralysed from the knees down after a booster shot of Gardasil in May.
Jessica, who has two older brothers and enjoys horse-riding and
football, had been sitting in a school lesson and started feeling weak.
She could barely walk to the car by the end of the day and late that
afternoon she was rushed to hospital. “I was getting weak, it felt weird to walk and to open the car door,” she said.
Although the cause has not been officially determined, her paralysis is a known and rare side effect of the vaccine and doctors have indicated this may be the cause.
In June, Shannon Nelson, 18, an athlete and artist from Chicago, received Gardasil with vaccines against meningitis and chickenpox. Within days she developed tingling, numbness and muscle weakness.
Her symptoms worsened and weeks later she could barely walk or raise her arms. She became paralysed on July 5. The paralysis lasted for two months and she is still recovering. “I couldn’t sit up in bed, I could not lift up my arms,” she said.
Of 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 have been reported to have experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to foetal abnormalities.
The reports, mostly made by doctors and other health professionals, were logged with the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, co-sponsored by the powerful Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Back in Britain, Jackie Fletcher, of Warrington, is the founder of Jabs, a support group for parents who believe their children have been damaged by vaccines.
She said: “We’re talking about a new vaccine. It has been used in the States and already there are reports of deaths and serious reactions.
“There are too many uncertainties. The vaccine should not be used until all these reports have been properly investigated and it’s been shown to be safe over long-term trials.”
She said a safer alternative would be to give smear tests, which pick up early signs of cervical cancer.
Dr John Oakley, a west Midlands GP, said the trials for Gardasil had been so limited that the children
taking it would be like “guinea-pigs”.
Gardasil, which costs £300 a dose, was approved for use in the US in June 2006 and since then has been in widespread use throughout America.
Tom Fitton, head of US health lobby group Judicial Watch, said: “The adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine reads like a catalogue of horrors. Any state or local government now beset by lobbying campaigns to mandate this vaccine for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports. It looks as if an unproven vaccine with dangerous side effects is being pushed as a miracle drug.”
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women in Britain, killing more than 1,120 every year. The UK vaccine programme is scheduled to begin next September for all girls up to the age of 18.
“We need to make the NHS a service that prevents ill-health and prioritises keeping people well,” said Mr Johnson.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said long-term safety trials had shown Gardasil was safe.
She said: “Given that this vaccine will save the lives of around 400 women each year and, in the absence of any scientific evidence that points to safety concerns, it would be irresponsible to raise inappropriate public fears over vaccine safety.”
Nicholas Kitchin, medical director of Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which manufactures the vaccine, said: “There is no good evidence to show the events were linked with the vaccine. “Some of the reports are not even valid. Over 13 million doses have been distributed worldwide and extensive monitoring has shown it to be safe.”
He said just because someone suffered a symptom after a vaccine, it did not necessarily mean it was to blame. Prelicence trials and monitoring had shown the vaccine to be “relatively safe” with side effects that were mostly “mild and self-limiting”.
Call me foolish, but I think that it's a bad idea to get shot up with any vaccine that needs to be advertised. Heck, you can't turn on the TV at night without seeing that insipid "One Less" commercial.
While I'm not one of those zealots from "La Leche League", I can say that Mrs. Wbill breastfed junior for a year, and it was almost 18 months before he got his 1st cold. The boy is healthy as a horse. Mrs. Wbill also liked breastfeeding because it melted off the pregnancy weight.
Just sayin'... What I saw, worked.
I will keep that in mind. Thanks.
You’re welcome. I’ve got three daughters, myself, and I’m a woman, too :-). I think this vaccine has the potential to be helpful, but people have got to be informed about its limits, as well as the potential risks of the vaccine itself.
Everyone needs to read the following story. Very little press, but big-time problem. The company is Merck, who also make Gardasil.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402514_pf.html
South African AIDS researchers have begun warning hundreds of volunteers that a highly touted experimental vaccine they received in recent months might make them more, not less, likely to contract HIV in the midst of one of the world’s most rampant epidemics.
The move stems from the discovery last month that an AIDS vaccine developed by Merck & Co. might have led to more infections than it averted among study subjects in the United States and other countries. Among those who received at least two doses of the vaccine, 19 contracted HIV compared with 11 of those given placebos.
Researchers shut down the trial on the grounds that the vaccine was proving ineffective, but the surge in infection among vaccinated volunteers prompted intense scientific debate and anxiety among researchers. The failure of the Merck vaccine is the latest in a series of disappointing results for research projects aimed at curbing AIDS.
“This is my worst nightmare,” said Glenda Gray, the lead South Africa investigator for the vaccine study. “I haven’t slept for days. I have a headache. I’m ready to resign from trials for the rest of my life.”
Actually, she received annual exams, which had produced abnormal results for 2 or three years prior to the official diagnosis. She had precancerous lesions on the cervix that were removed each time. The real cancer was endocervical, which the doctors didn’t see until it was too late. This was 10 years ago, and there are now more advanced diagnostic procedures. Something to keep in mind if Pap test results are repeatedly abnormal.
Thanks, that’s informative.
But your example proves my point. I did not write about risky behavior on the part of women only. Your example proves the necessity of a single standard of moral behavior for both sexes. I would also point out that your example requires a less-than honest groom.
Case law is full of successful lawsuits where the seller of a major item such as a house or used car failed to disclose a “material defect”.
If a man asks a woman to marry him and yet fails to take the necessary steps to protect her health, what kind of person is he? We cannot impose tyranny on the universe of women because some women are careless in choosing with whom they copulate or under what circumstances.
Yet in today’s world of libertine sexual expression, no government law is going to stop random copulation. Those who enjoy the activity have grown sufficiently in number to demand that government minimizes the consequences of this lifestyle. Before this era, libertines were just able to repeat that law cannot impose morality. Now they are attempting to use law to negate the consequences of immorality. It is just as futile.
This also proves the creeping tyranny of government involvement in health care because a substantial basis for passing this horrid imposition is that government ends up paying the health care costs of the disease. Hello? Is anyone home here? Nothing stops people from buying the protection they think is appropriate. I don’t intend on getting a flu vaccination because I am not exposed to the risk of getting the disease. I do choose to purchase vaccinations for other diseases that I am exposed to.
I consider enforced vaccinations such as this program as nothing less than assault on citizens under the color of law.
They interveiwed some highly trained boilogists who were convinced that it has passed into humans through a batch of polio virus manufactured in Africa on contaminated chimpanzee kidneys, which was then used to innoculate the local population in the late 1950's.
The AIDS epidemic in Africa began in the exact areas that received this vaccine.
Thank you for posting the information and link to the original Washington Post story. Was this ever posted as a thread to FR?
I don’t think it was. Perhaps it should be a new thread.
No, I had not heard this. And, frankly, I am not in the least surprised. I heard recently that because of the antibacterial soaps and related products they use, many people are now becoming ill because these products kill off the good bacteria as well - and, oh yes, the products are no more effective than regular soap.
I stopped listening to this government bs years ago. Don't drink coffee - then two years later they say coffee is good for you. Don't smoke - then they discover that nictoine has healing properties. And the list goes on and on.
Thank for the link! A dear friend recently had her 14 y/o grandaughter vaccinated “because” her mother died from cervical cancer and she assumes it runs in families. Some people simply believe everything they hear from the gov’t.
Some of these effects sound like Guillaume-Barre Syndrome, except that that is fatal if not detected and treated.
I am very sorry your friend died from this disease and I am sure that as a father you would want to protect your children.
However, an individual case does not invalidate the intent of my statement, which quite simply is that the greater the level of promiscuity in society the higher the incidence of sexually transmitted illnesses.
I was very upset to learn this weekend that my niece had this shot. I hope she will be okay.
I hate that they are pushing this on young girls, as it is basically showing an expectation that they will be having sex with multiple partners before marriage. God knows what is best for us, and that’s why he tells us to wait, and to be faithful to our spouse.
Sure the incidence of autism, allergies and asthma is going up, but that may be due to any number of factors (higher pollution for example). Doesn’t mean there is a direct link to breast-feeding. Without more breast feeding the levels of autism, allergies and asthma might be even higher..
Maybe, maybe not. Most sexually transmitted bugs dont live long outside the human body. Immaterial anyway. You could only get it off a toilet seat if someone with the disease had “been” there before, and if there was more abstinence generally there would be less chance of that happening.
Nobody knows the devastating effects this could have on our young women even later on in life (see “Thalidomide”). I am SO sick of our government trying to foist this off on our young girls. I hate this.
Let’s kill 25 to save 400. Cheez. Government thinkers....
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