When it was introduced by manufacturer Merck, Inc., in 2006, Gardasil was marketed as a preventative treatment for cervical cancer. A glitzy ad campaign urged parents to vaccinate their daughters, to ensure that “One Less” girl would die of cervical cancer.

But what followed were mounting reports to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). To date, there have been more than 20,000 reports of serious side effects that developed after patients received one or more of the three scheduled doses of the vaccine. These include blood clots, paralysis, seizures, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and pancreatitis.

Additionally, VAERS has collected information about 71 deaths among young people following HPV vaccinations, including three boys, as of September 15, 2011.

So far, physicians, health organizations like the CDC and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and of course the drug’s maker, Merck, insist that none of these reported side effects or deaths can be conclusively proven to be the result of the vaccine. A recent Merck-funded study insists clinical tests on patients who have received the vaccine demonstrate side effects no more serious than rashes, injection site swelling or fainting.

But at the heart of the matter is an even more important – and largely overlooked – question: does Gardasil do what it promises? Does it really prevent cancer?

According to Dr. Diane Harper, Professor and Vice-Chair of Research at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, specializing in Community and Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Bioinformatics and Personalized Medicine, who worked on the team that developed Gardasil, “duration of efficacy is the key to the entire question.”

She tells the Huffington Post that while Gardasil does offer some protection to sexually active women from four specific types of HPV, there is no evidence the drug’s protections last longer than five years. This means if a child as young as 9 receives the vaccine – as “recommended” – generally when that child reaches an age where he or she may be sexually active, the vaccine’s protection will have run out.

While she emphasizes that choosing whether or not to receive a vaccine or to allow your child to be vaccinated is a personal one, she urges those considering the HPV vaccine to weigh the pros and cons very carefully. She said she feels the “One Less” marketing campaign was designed to scare more people into choosing the vaccine.

“Yes, the marketing campaign was designed to incite the greatest fear possible in parents, so that there would be uptake of the vaccine,” she tells the Huffington Post. “If parents and girls were told the benefits and harms of Pap screening and HPV vaccines … an informed and valued decision would have been able to be made. Many may have chosen to continue with a lifetime of Pap screening and forgo the vaccines, with the unknowns of duration of efficacy and safety unable to be answered for many more years.”

Fundamentally, Harper says, “Gardasil is not really a cervical cancer vaccine. The vaccine prevents HPV infection. Not the development of cervical cancer.”

So, yes, the HPV vaccine could prevent young men – within a five-year window of effectiveness – from developing HPV-related infections. But at what risk? And then what?

Sources:

Huffington Post
Bethlehem Patch
MSNBC

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

According to the language in the final version of the legislation, the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services will be responsible for developing “an informational brochure relating to the connection between human papillomavirus and cervical cancer, and that an immunization against the human papillomavirus infection is available.” The legislation says the brochure will be made available on the health department’s website and that the department will notify each public school district in the state of the availability of the materials.

It is unclear whether the new literature will specifically name or endorse the Gardasil vaccine, but the language of the bill suggests that educational materials will imply the vaccine is a true preventive measure against cervical cancer, when in fact the drug only protects against four out of about 40 different types of HPV.

It is also is unclear whether the new literature will clarify that medical professionals say about 90 percent of HPV infections are cleared by the body on its own, making the vaccination largely unnecessary, or whether the literature will outline the many serious adverse events associated with Gardasil. Since its introduction in 2006, Gardasil has been linked to reports of such serious side effects as seizures and lupus. There also have been more than 50 deaths reported following Gardasil vaccinations.

The brochure will include language about the importance of Pap tests in detecting precancerous changes that can develop into cervical cancer.

The bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Robert Cooper (R) and handled in the Senate by Sen. Jolie Justus (D), also allows physicians to prescribe medication for the sexual partners of their patients to treat sexually transmitted diseases chlamydia and gonorrhea, a practice known as “expedited therapy.”

Read the Missouri HB1375T.

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

Pap smears are screening tests used by gynecologists to detect cervical cancer cells. Changes in the cell processes signal the development of cervical cancer and prompt the physician to start treatment.

According to Dr. Harper, “Pap smears have never killed anyone. Pap smears are an effective screening tool to prevent cervical cancer. Pap smears alone prevent more cervical cancers than can the vaccines alone.”

“Gardasil is associated with serious adverse events, including death,” Dr. Harper explained. “If Gardasil is given to 11-year-olds, and the vaccine does not last at least 15 years, then there is no benefit – and only risk – for the young girl.”

Without boosters, Gardasil vaccines remain effective for five years.

“Vaccinating will not reduce the population incidence of cervical cancer if the woman continues to get Pap screening throughout her life,” Dr. Harper added.

Dr. Harper told Yerman in a written communication that she disagreed with Merck’s campaign to make the vaccine mandatory for school-age girls.

“The decision to be vaccinated must be the woman’s (or parent’s if it is for a young child), and not the physician’s or any board of health, as the vaccination contains personal risk that only the person can value.”

The choice to receive the Gardasil vaccine “is entirely a personal value judgment,” Dr. Harper said.

When asked about Merck’s “one less” marketing campaign, Dr. Harper told Yerman that it “was designed to incite the greatest fear possible in parents, so that there would be uptake of the vaccine.”

“If women were participating in Pap screening, or if as a parent you educated your daughter to seek Pap screening at the appropriate age (21 years) for her entire life, then she would have been very unlikely to be at risk for being “one” and would not be “one less,” Dr. Harper told Yerman.

“She would not have been ‘one’ to begin with!”

To read the entire interview with Dr. Harper, please click here.

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

Preventative measures and current treatments are already lowering the occurrence of HPV and cervical cancer faster than the vaccination could, Dr. Harper said, explaining that the cervical cancer rate will be reduced more than 91 percent in 60 years time without the vaccination.

But Dr. Harper’s explanation of Gardasil’s uselessness wasn’t as eye-opening or alarming as some of her other allegations. In light of Merck’s aggressive lobbying efforts to make Gardasil mandatory for school-age girls, it’s especially upsetting that Dr. Harper told her audience that the manufacturer never conducted any safety or efficacy trials in girls under 15 years old and that vaccinating young girls en masse amounted to “a great big public health experiment.”

That Merck would develop an unnecessary vaccine, force it on the public, and then take a “wait and see” approach to gauge its safety is unconscionable. One can only imagine the dollar signs Merck’s leadership saw as they looked upon a whole nation of girls unvaccinated against HPV.

Any corporation like Merck that holds the health of millions in its grasp wields a staggering amount of power. It should upset the millions of American moms and dads that Merck regards their young daughters as guinea pigs – the unwitting subjects of a vaccination experiment destined to add billions more dollars to its corporate coffers. How many health professionals and medical organizations have been swayed by Merck’s political lobbying, financial rewards, misinformation and other abuses of that power?

A lot, I suspect. My younger sister has four daughters who range in age from 16 years to 2. When she takes her two oldest daughters for check ups, the pediatrician typically tells her she should have them vaccinated against HPV with injections of Gardasil. Most recently, the doctor pressured my sister to have her 11-year-old vaccinated.

Fortunately, my sister decided to research the vaccine before agreeing to the shots and has said no.

“It’s such a shame that companies are allowed to prey on kids like that,” my sister told me, adding that she is glad she has repeatedly told the doctors “no” to the shots in light of the news that they are dangerous and potentially deadly to some girls.

Since Gardasil first appeared in 2006, 15,037 inoculated girls have reported adverse side effects to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Reactions that have been officially reported include brain inflammation, seizures, blood clots, paralysis, lupus, Guilliane Barre Syndrome, and several others. 44 deaths attributed to the vaccine have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If what Dr. Harper says is true, then all 44 of those deaths were completely unnecessary. That even more women and girls will be sacrificed for Merck’s bottom line as Gardasil shots are unnecessarily doled out is nothing less than criminal.

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