The Gardasil HPV vaccine may be as dangerous as it is unnecessary

Stop Right There

Your pediatrician is about to give your daughter a Gardasil vaccination – designed to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), one of the causes of cervical cancer.

But before he does, he turns to you and says, “I should mention that thousands of CDC adverse event reports, which include paralysis and seizures, have been made in connection with this vaccine. Some of the girls receiving the vaccine required hospitalization. At least seven young women died suddenly shortly after receiving the vaccine, although in some cases the exact cause of death hasn’t been determined.

“So should we go ahead with it?”

Many parents would stop it right there, while others would have no qualms about going ahead with the shot.

But they might have second thoughts if their doctor kept up the conversation

Talkin’ the talk

“So should we go ahead with it?”

At this point a parent might say, “Well, it’s mandated by the state, so we have to.”

(New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Virginia require the vaccine for all girls entering the sixth grade. Similar legislation is pending in other states.)

Doctor: No, you can easily opt out. In this case “mandatory,” isn’t really mandatory.

Parent: Right, but the state wouldn’t well, let’s say, “strongly encourage” the vaccine for all girls if it didn’t prevent cervical cancer.

Doctor: Actually, the vaccine prevents HPV, which is just one of the causes of cervical cancer. The best way to decrease your daughter’s risk of invasive cervical cancer is to teach her to be disciplined about getting regular gynecological exams.

(According to the American Cancer Society, when pap tests detect early cervical cancer, survival rate is more than 90 percent.)

Parent: So you’re telling me that the state makes it SEEM like this expensive vaccine is mandatory, and yet getting vaccinated doesn’t guarantee that my daughter will avoid cervical cancer?

Doctor: That’s right.

Parent: And what are those adverse side effects again?

Junkyard dog

A recent report from Judicial Watch (a public interest group that promotes government accountability) leads off with this quote from Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton: “The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors. Any state or local government now beset by Merck’s lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports.”

If those state and local governments follow Mr. Fitton’s advice, they’ll have quite a bit of reading to do.

Less than one year after the FDA approved Merck’s Gardasil in June 2006, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request and received more than 1,600 reports that were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System regarding Gardasil. Three months later, Judicial Watch filed another request and found that nearly 200 new reports had been added to the list.

Some of the adverse events that show up frequently in the reports include:

Dizziness
Fainting
Seizures
Convulsions
Guillain-Barre Syndrome (a central nervous system disorder in which weakness and tingling sensations in the legs spread to the upper body, sometimes causing paralysis)

Parent: Okay, those are troubling side effects. But given the thousands of young women who have received the vaccine, the chances of experiencing those events are very small. So isn’t the vaccine worth the risk?

And here’s what the doctor is not likely to admit: According to a Journal of the American Medical Association study, less than two percent of all women develop the two types of HPV that are responsible for 70 percent of all cervical cancers. And American Cancer Society guidelines state that 90 percent of adolescent HPV infections are resolved without treatment – the same is true for about 75 percent of HPV infections in adults.

I hope you’ll share this e-Alert with your friends and family who are parents of young daughters. Let them know that the Gardasil vaccine is potentially dangerous, but guaranteed to do only one thing: Make billions of dollars for Merck.

Sources:
“Judicial Watch Investigates Side-Effects of HPV Vaccine” Judicial Watch, 5/14/08, judicialwatch.org
“The Rush to Vaccinate” Sigrid Fry-Revere, New York Times, 3/25/07, nytimes.com