GARDASIL

Monday, September 28, 2009
WHY?? - Cervical cancer vaccinations for all girls
Posted by: jyuen
Three days ago it was announced that all 12 to 13 year old girls will be given the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine starting from next year (see attached news article or http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/25/nation/20090925121015&sec=nation).There are several areas of concern here that we the consumers and more importantly, the parents of these and future 12-13 year old girls need to consider.Firstly, is how safe is it? According to the related stories of the above Star news report, Cervical cancer vaccine: Who needs it, how it works (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine/WO00120) which links you to the Mayo Clinic's website on the HPV vaccine which states that it is "to be remarkably safe...The most common complaint is soreness at the injection site, the upper arm. Low-grade fever or flu-like symptoms also are common. Sometimes dizziness or fainting occurs after the injection, especially in adolescents. Overall, the effects are usually mild." The concern here is that, with "mild" side effects like "flu-like symptoms" could lead to other drugs being given like for AH1N1 since most doctors now have been instructed to lean more to the over cautious side due to the current AH1N1 situation.Also, in the same section, it has stated that "some serious side effects have been reported, including a severe allergic response (anaphylaxis); neurological conditions, such as paralysis, weakness and brain swelling; and death." Although the site does try to justify it with the statement that "To date, almost all reports of such adverse side effects appear to have occurred around the time of vaccination by chance. They don't appear to be caused by the vaccination itself." Perhaps we should ask how many more people must be paralyzed or die till it does appear to be caused by the vaccination itself?While cervical cancer is indeed a major disease that we need to be concerned about, could it be a matter of putting our children more in harm's way with this HPV vaccine? I strongly suggest that you read this article Vaccine Safety Group Releases GARDASIL Reaction Report (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/63586.php) posted on an online medical news website. Why Gardasil? Because it may be the HPV vaccine of choice for this in school vaccination program.This article mentioned "Out of the 385 individual GARDASIL adverse event reports made to VAERS (the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), two-thirds required additional medical care and about one-third of all reports were for children 16-years-old and under, with nearly 25 percent of those children having received simultaneously one or more of the 18 vaccines that Merck did not study in combination with GARDASIL. NVIC is calling on the FDA and CDC to warn parents and doctors that GARDASIL should not be combined with other vaccines and that young girls should be monitored for at least 24 hours for syncopal (collapse/fainting) episodes that can be accompanied by seizure activity, as well as symptoms of tingling, numbness and loss of sensation in the fingers and limbs". The article also mentioned that ""There are twice as many children collapsing and four times as many children experiencing tingling, numbness and loss of sensation after getting a GARDASIL vaccination compared to those getting a Tdap (tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis) vaccination. There have been reports of facial paralysis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome" And the most amazing part of the health warning by the NVIC (the US National Vaccine Information Center) is "To avoid unnecessary injuries, teenage girls should be vaccinated laying down, not be left unattended and probably should not walk or drive themselves home from the doctor's office after they get vaccinated." And If that doesn't make one stop to think about how safe this HPV vaccine is, I don't know what will.The next question we should ask is how effective is the HPV vaccine? According to the Mayo Clinic website, "Yes. In clinical trials, the vaccine was effective in a group of sexually active women age 26 or younger, some of whom had already been infected with one or more types of HPV. There's a caveat, however. The cervical cancer vaccine blocks HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18, but only if you haven't been exposed to those particular types of HPV." What if you already are? And from the Medical News Today website article, "NVIC also found that there were several VAERS reports of HPV infection, genital warts and cervical lesions after GARDASIL vaccination. It is unknown if the girls were infected with HPV before being vaccinated or if GARDASIL failed to protect them. One case of HPV infection occurred in a 22-year-old girl who had participated in a Merck GARDASIL trial in 2003 when she had shown "strong conversion to all 4 vaccine types" but "tested positive for high risk HPV" in 2006, according to the VAERS report." and "The FDA staff also questioned whether the "HPV types not contained in the vaccine might offset the overall clinical effectiveness of the vaccine." There are more than 15 types of HPV associated with cervical cancer but GARDASIL only contains HPV types 16 and 18."Two to four strains out of 15 that can cause cervical cancer as well as a possible ineffectiveness of the vaccine itself? Think about it.The third area of concern is do 12-13 year old girls fall into the high risk group for contracting cervical cancer?To answer this, let's look at how .Mayo Clinic - "Various strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which spreads through sexual contact, are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer." and "HPV spreads through sexual contact. To protect yourself from HPV, use a condom every time you have sex. It's also important to limit your number of sexual partners. Not smoking helps, too. Smoking doubles the risk of cervical cancer." And also "The more sexual partners you've had, the greater your chance of having been exposed to multiple types of HPV — including HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18."Medical News Today - see what category this article is classified under "Sexual health / STD" From Wikipedia (and you can refer to their reference articles too) - "Although possible, transmission by routes other than sexual intercourse is less common for female genital HPV infection"One question we should ask - how sexually active are 12 to 13 year old girls? Would not better moral and religious education as well as parental guidance on avoiding pre marital sex or at least on safe sex be more effective in preventing HPV from spreading?The final word on this HPV vaccine is best stated in the last two paragraphs of the Medical News Today - "VAERS is a passive surveillance system and depends upon voluntary reporting of serious health problems following vaccination, even though safety provisions in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 mandated that health care providers report vaccine adverse events. There have been estimates that fewer than 10 percent, even as low as 1 to 4 percent, of adverse events which occur after prescription drug or vaccine use are ever reported to government adverse event reporting systems."If only 1 to 4 percent of all adverse events associated with GARDASIL vaccination are being reported to VAERS, there could have been up to 38,000 health problems after GARDASIL vaccination in 2006 which were never reported," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "How many girls are really having short-term health problems associated with getting this vaccine that could turn into long-term neurological or immune system disorders? And how many will go on to develop fertility problems, cancer or damage to their genes, all of which Merck admits in its product insert that it has not studied at all? We just don't know enough to be mandating GARDASIL for anyone, much less vulnerable 11 to 12 year old girls entering puberty."