The study was published in May 2007, about one year after Gardasil was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug was approved for girls and young women, as protection against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually-transmitted virus linked to the development of cervical cancer. The 98 percent figure was tied to the drug’s effectiveness in “preventing changes in the cervix uses as a marker for cervical cancer,” according to a recent article by Discover Magazine blog writer Jeanne Lenzer, a medical investigative journalist.

Based in part on these claims of astounding success, the drug’s use was eventually expanded, and last month approved for use in boys and young men. The theory most popularly given for this is to increase protection for women. Protect young men from developing HPV, and you build in protection for their future partners. Not mentioned nearly as often, the FDA also cites benefits for men including protection against oral and anal cancers.

But is Gardasil really that effective?

Lenzer digs deeper into the initial study to uncover the bottom line. She notes that Merck only obtained 98 percent efficacy when “all real-world problems that arose were excluded from analysis.” This included patients who never received the full series of three shots, or perhaps patients who were vaccinated when they didn’t meet certain required criteria.

When results for all women in the study, not just the perfect cases, are analyzed, the efficacy rate is reported to be 44 percent. Still not bad. However, this number is then revealed to be tied only to those women who have one or both of the two strains of HPV that have been shown to be conclusively tied to cervical cancer, against which Gardasil protects.

Here’s where things really go off track. Lenzer reports that “when the researchers looked at negative cervical changes from any causes, they found that changes occurred in unvaccinated women at a rate of 1.5 events per 100 person-years, while vaccinated women had 1.3 events—dropping the benefit to 17 percent.”

Add into this the alarming number of serious adverse events reported by young women after receiving the vaccine – even deaths – and the risk to benefit ratio seems more than a little uneven. Even if adverse events have not been conclusively proven to be a result of the vaccine, there is a growing database of possible links.

The truth of the matter is that it is still too early to tell how well Gardail works in real-world conditions. It may be years yet before there is evidence of how well it works, or doesn’t work. And yet, already it is approved for an even broader distribution, now to boys and young men.

Shouldn’t we be more certain of the benefits – and the risks – before we line up our children for this vaccine?

Source:  Discover Magazine

SOURCE: the Truth about Gardasil">Beasley Allen Case Site

Although not reported in most mainstream media, SANE VAX discovered the French government had banned Gardasil ads in August 2010. The drug, which targets and prevents four types of human papillomavirus (HPV) linked to cervical cancer, is produced by Merck & Co. and marketed in France by its partner Sanofli-Pasteur. On Jan. 4, 2011, SANE VAX issued a news release about the ban, which was handed down by the Director General of the French Agency for Safety of Health Products (AFSSAPS).

According to the news release, the AFSSAPS found Gardasil ads to be in “direct violation of the French public health code.” At issue are claims of longer efficacy for the drug than has been actually proving, and making false claims that the drug is a “cure” for cervical cancer.

In actuality, the French Committee on Immunization Practices (CTV) and the High Council of Public Health (HCSP) say “the vaccine’s impact on the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer will only become apparent in the long term, in 15 to 20 years.”

The American Chronicle reports that as a result of the French decision and ban of Gardasil ads, similar advertising for Gardasil and the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) manufactured HPV vaccination, Cervarix, have been removed in the UK. In particular, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority cited GlaxoSmithKline for making claims that the Cervarix vaccine would protect young women indefinitely against cervical cancer, using the slogan “Armed for Life.” The agency instructed the manufacturer to change the ad to clarify the language. Eventually, the local Primary Care Trust decided to remove the advertisements altogether.

Additionally, the publication reports India has had similar problems with HPV advertisements, and in December 2009 the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), which is the drug regulatory agency, took issue with the way GlaxoSmithKline was promoting Cervarix in India. The DCGI says the manufacturer was misleading the public and accused the drugmaker of “unlawful propagation of its cervical cancer vaccine, Cervarix, through mass media.”

American Chronicle reporter Christina England reports that other countries also have reported seeing false advertising for Cervarix and Gardasil, usually linked to claims that the drugs will prevent cervical cancer.

For more information:

American Chronicle article
SANE VAX website

SOURCE: the Truth about Gardasil">Beasley Allen Case Site

It’s a rhetorical question, but it makes you wonder if it’s somehow more permissible to be killed or injured by a drug than it is by a defective automobile.

Merck has lobbied federal regulators hard to make Gardasil mandatory for all American schoolgirls. Fortunately, the drug giant’s vision of requiring every girl in the nation to receive its three-tiered shot fell short of becoming law. Although many states require sixth-grade girls to receive the shot, parents have the legal right to refuse it. But very few of them know about the drug’s risks and how it has harmed and occasionally killed perfectly healthy girls.

According to the Washington Examiner, 20-year-old Mary Katherine Davison of Frederick, Maryland, became dizzy and nauseated after receiving her second Gardasil shot in January 2008. Although her two younger sisters had no reactions, Mary Katherine suffered a massive stroke and spent 2 months in rehab re-learning how to walk. Her mother, Mary Davison, said that she made no connection between her daughter’s stroke and Gardasil until Mary Katherine’s doctor refused to schedule her for the final Gardasil shot.

Days later, 17-year-old Jessica Ericzon of Alexandria Bay, New York, collapsed and died on the bathroom floor just 40 hours after receiving her third Gardasil shot. Jessica had complained of pain and dizziness after her second shot, but sadly nobody connected her symptoms to Garsdasil.

21-year-old Christina Tarsell of Sparks, Maryland, received her third Gardasil shot and spent more then 2 weeks feeling dizzy, nauseated and fatigued before she died.

“We had no clue that these were all symptoms of something,” her mother told the Washington Examiner. In all these cases, autopsies and toxicology screenings failed to determine the cause of death.

Naturally, Merck defends its Gardasil vaccine. The pharmaceutical giant also has a powerful ally in the CDC, which officially reported in 2008 that Gardasil recipients didn’t experience negative reactions any more than non-recipients.

That claim, however, was countered by the National Vaccine Information Center, which used the same CDC data to show that Gardasil was linked to “at least four times as many death and cardiac arrest reports” as Cervarix and “seemed to be associated with an unusually high number of reports of atypical collapse.”

“CDC is still saying this is a safe vaccine. With Pap smears, there was no medical reason for fast-tracking FDA approval. They made it (cervical cancer) sound like it was some kind of pandemic,” Christina Tarsell’s mother, Emily, told the Washington Examiner, adding that nobody from the CDC will respond to her calls.

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Time-for-the-truth-about-Gardasil-89466882.html

SOURCE: the Truth about Gardasil">Beasley Allen Case Site

First, the vaccines are known to have serious risks. The threat of blood clots, seizure, paralysis, outbreak of warts, and sudden death has been documented in thousands of adverse event reports obtained by Judicial Watch under Freedom of Information law. The risks may be small for most of the women and girls who receive the vaccines (administered in a series of three shots), but they are nonetheless real.

Girls and women who are not sexually active are not at risk of contracting HPV. Merck lobbyists pushed to make the shots mandatory for all school girls as young as 9 years old. However, unless those 9-year-olds are sexually active, their chances of becoming infected with HPV and developing cervical cancer are zero.

Women who receive regular pap screenings are at minimal risk of developing cervical cancer because testing will detect precancers if they are present. Precancerous cells can be treated safely and effectively with traditional therapies to prevent the development of cancer.

The incidence of cervical cancer among women who do not receive screening or vaccination is about 90 per 100,000. According to Dr. Diane Harper, who is widely regarded as the top expert on HPV and the Gardasil vaccine, “the combination of HPV vaccine and screening in the U.S. will not decrease the incidence of cervical cancer to any measurable degree at the population level.” That assertion contradicts the claims of some HPV vaccine advocates.

So who might HPV vaccines benefit? Sexually active women who don’t receive regular pap tests would benefit the most, but only if they are willing to assume the risk of being either injured by the vaccine or, in the rare event, killed. For the vast majority of women, the risks of receiving Gardasil or Cervarix vaccinations simply outweigh any benefits.

Sources:

http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=1&t=0&id=23815

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/3228514/Concerned-mum-sets-up-vaccine-site

SOURCE: the Truth about Gardasil">Beasley Allen Case Site