Posted on 01/25/2008 10:12:14 AM PST by Froufrou
The death of two young women who received the cervical cancer vaccination is causing some in the U.K. to question a strategy that calls for hundreds of thousands of schoolgirls to receive the shot next fall, the Daily Mail reports.
The young women who died received the vaccination, marketed under the name Gardasil, in Germany and Austria, respectively. The European Medicines Agency has not released their ages.
The two deaths follow the deaths of three U.S. females, ages 12, 19 and 22, who were reported to have died days after receiving Gardasil, which protects against the human papillomavirus — believed to be the leading cause of cervical cancer — was administered.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reported that 28 women miscarried after receiving the vaccine.
Neither U.S. nor European health officials have directly linked the deaths or miscarriages to Gardasil. The FDA has said there is no reason to reexamine approval of the drug.
A spokesman for Merck, maker of Gardasil, told the Daily Mail there were no plans to change the company's recommendation on use of the vaccine.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“And yet ... suppose some nice, abstinent girl gets married to a nice boy who, nevertheless, has contracted HPV. Do you suggest she not get vaccinated, because she’s abstinent?”
While it is believed that some protection may be offered by Gardasil relevent to some HPV (4 - there are over 40 HPV’s known), no guarantee has ever been made regarding full immunity of contraction of one of these 4 type-specific HPV’s.
The FDA’s studies indicate that these vaccine may INCREASE a female’s risk of cervical disease if they already have one of the 4 HPV’s at the time of injection.
Research reveals the HPV strains that causes warts is not the strains that could cause Cervical Cancer.
The folks pushing this are encouraging girls to get a vaccine that will make it less of a risk for them, if they want to have sex all they want. They don't want the girls to think about all the other risks of sexual activity; STDs, pregnancy, AIDS. What's interesting, is that they're using the mothers of these girls to encourage their daughters, because at their age, the mothers ARE worried about cancer, not the problems associated with sexual activity.
Exactly. Some vaccinations have been mandated all my life, for 55 years. Why haven’t they had problems?
It seems to be the newer vaccines that have more risk. I base this comment on nvic.org information.
I also heard that 80% (!!) of women have HPV by the age of 50.
WOW - pretty prevalent...
My daughter was VERY sick for a week after getting her flu vaccine and my son received the chicken pox vaccine and contracted chicken pox 3 years later!
Great points you have made! The bigger picture that I find scary is that years back the government was ‘good’ for defeating polio whereas now it’s come down to ‘what the government is forcing upon us’ and I don’t like that.
To the young girls out there, don’t have sex with warted males. Better yet, don’t have sex... never mind.
Remember when they would test you for venereal diseases before issuing a marriage license? Or was that just for syphilis?
It's not a cancer vaccine, moron reporter/headline writer. It's a vaccine against an STD.
Nope. He'd still be a carrier.
Watch one of Merck’s Gardasil “One Less” ads.
They are really going after young girls!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ8x3KR75fA
Unless you have that specific test, you don’t know if you have it or not. It is not the pap smear test, it’s another one.
I don’t remember that pre-marriage test.
All I know is that back when I worked at Roche Labs, now known as Lab Corpe, they felt that we all should be educated on different forms of STD's. Human papillomavirus at that time was an STD. Small flat warts on a male's privates. Easily removed. Didn't affect the male in any way but passed on to the female caused cervical cancer.
1) GARDASIL is a vaccine for 4 strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), two strains that are strongly associated (and probably cause) genital warts and two strains that are typically associated (and may cause) cervical cancer. About 90% of people with genital warts show exposure to one of the two HPV strains strongly suspected to cause genital warts. About 70% of women with cervical cancer show exposure to one of the other two HPV strains that the vaccine is designed to confer resistance to.
2) HPV is a sexually communicable (not an infectious) virus. When you consider all strains of HPV, over 70% of sexually active males and females have been exposed. A condom helps a lot (70% less likely to get it), but has not been shown to stop transmission in all cases (only one study of 82 college girls who self-reported about condom use has been done). For the vast majority of women, exposure to HPV strains (even the four “bad ones” protected for in GARDASIL) results in no known health complications of any kind.
3) Cervical cancer is not a deadly nor prevalent cancer in the US or any other first world nation. Cervical cancer rates have declined sharply over the last 30 years and are still declining. Cervical cancer accounts for less than 1% of of all female cancer cases and deaths in the US. Cervical cancer is typically very treatable and the prognosis for a healthy outcome is good. The typical exceptions to this case are old women, women who are already unhealthy and women who don’t get pap smears until after the cancer has existed for many years.
4) Merck’s clinical studies for GARDASIL were problematic in several ways. Only 20,541 women were used (half got the “placebo”) and their health was followed up for only four years at maximum and typically 1-3 years only. More critically, only 1,121 of these subjects were less than 16. The younger subjects were only followed up for a maximum of 18 months. Furthermore, less than 10% of these subjects received true placebo injections. The others were given injections containing an aluminum salt adjuvant (vaccine enhancer) that is also a component of GARDASIL. This is scientifically preposterous, especially when you consider that similar alum adjuvants are suspected to be responsible for Gulf War disease and other possible vaccination related complications.
5) Both the “placebo” groups and the vaccination groups reported a myriad of short term and medium term health problems over the course of their evaluations. The majority of both groups reported minor health complications near the injection site or near the time of the injection. Among the vaccination group, reports of such complications were slightly higher. The small sample that was given a real placebo reported far fewer complications — as in less than half. Furthermore, most if not all longer term complications were written off as not being potentially vaccine caused for all subjects.
6) Because the pool of subjects were so small and the rates of cervical cancer are so low, NOT A SINGLE CONTROL SUBJECT ACTUALLY CONTRACTED CERVICAL CANCER IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM — MUCH LESS DIED OF IT. Instead, this vaccine’s supposed efficacy is based on the fact that the vaccinated group ended up with far fewer cases (5 vs. about 200) of genital warts and “precancerous lesions” (dysplasias) than the alum injected “control” subjects.
7) Because the tests included just four years of follow up at most, the long term effects and efficacy of this vaccine are completely unknown for anyone. All but the shortest term effects are completely unknown for little girls. Considering the tiny size of youngster study, the data about the shortest terms side effects for girls are also dubious.
8) GARDASIL is the most expensive vaccine ever marketed. It requires three vaccinations at $120 a pop for a total price tag of $360. It is expected to be Merck’s biggest cash cow of this and the next decade.
These are simply the facts of the situation as presented by Merck and the FDA. This vaccine was just approved in June, 2006. It was never tested on pre-teens except in a tiny trial run with at most 18 months of follow up. Even if we subscribe to the theory that HPV causes cervical cancer, there is ZERO hard data showing that this vaccine reduces cervical cancer rates or cervical cancer mortality rates, which are both already very low in the US and getting lower every year. Now Texas has already made this vaccine mandatory for middle school with all sorts of useful idiots and Big Pharma operatives clamoring for more states to make this vaccine COMPULSORY immediately.
Without looking it up, it’s 4 strains; 16 & 18 and 2 others with lower numbers. The ones that cause warts are different strains than the ones that could cause cervical cancer.......
Women can get it from their husbands, so it doesn’t send a message about sexual activity.
Now, I am not going to give it to my 11 year old daughters because one of my daughters has a seizure disorder, and I would like to limit most vaccinations.
However, when she is an adult (18) she will have to make this choice for herself.
All I can do is tell you what they taught us. That was back in 91.
“The folks pushing this are encouraging girls to get a vaccine that will make it less of a risk for them, if they want to have sex all they want. They don’t want the girls to think about all the other risks of sexual activity; STDs, pregnancy, AIDS.”
Merck didn’t design and promote this drug because they want young girls to have sex. They did it to make money. Lots of money. It’s not a free sex conspiracy.
They could get it from their husband.
I know of a nice woman who had been monogamous who caught several yucky STDs from her scumbag cheating husband.
“It is just another way for the culture to tell our children, sexual activity is safe at any age.”
Wrong. It’s nothing more sinister than a way for Merck to make piles of money.
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