Dr. Mercola September 09 2008 24,396 views
Tens of millions of girls and young women have been vaccinated against human pappilomavirus (HPV) in the United States and Europe in the two years since two vaccines were given government approval in many countries. One of the vaccines, Merck’s Gardasil, has been made available to the poorest girls in the country, up to age 18, at a potential cost to the United States government of more than $1 billion, and proposals to mandate the vaccine for girls in middle schools have been offered in 24 states.
The lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education -- but their critics are calling it a triumph of marketing.
Award-winning advertising has promoted the vaccines, including ads that ran before the film “Sex and the City,” on YouTube, and during popular shows like “Law and Order.” The vaccine makers have also provided money for activities by patients’ and women’s groups, doctors and medical experts, lobbyists and political organizations interested in the disease, sometimes in ways that skirt disclosure requirements or obscure the companies’ involvement.
Some experts are worrying about the consequences of the rapid rollout of the new vaccines without more medical evidence. Because of the aggressive marketing, even parents of girls who are far from being sexually active may feel pressured into giving them a vaccine that is not yet needed and whose long-term impact is still unclear.
In the United States, hundreds of doctors have been recruited and trained to give talks about Gardasil, at $4,500 for a lecture. Some have made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There is no doubt that many well-intentioned parents out there are being deceived , or at the least seriously misled -- by Merck, Gardasil’s maker, the media, public health officials, and perhaps their own physicians -- into believing that Gardasil is beneficial for their daughters.But what they don’t tell you is that Gardasil has caused thousands of serious reactions, including many sudden deaths within 7 days of inoculation. Even one of our blog readers had a daughter that died from this immunization.
Fear Mongering 101: Aggressive Advertising
Aggressive pharmaceutical advertising is nothing new, but the Gardasil anti-cervical cancer campaign has swept across the West like a revolution.
It’s also one of the most successful examples of baseless fear mongering I can think of.
While cervical cancer is touted as the second-leading cause of cancer death in women, with 500,000 new cases worldwide each year, the marketing campaign fails to inform you of the entire truth. What they fail to mention is that nearly 95 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries, which cannot afford to administer the HPV vaccine anyway.
We already know that where there are Pap smear programs, very few women die of cervical cancer because regular Pap smears can detect precancerous cells early enough for effective treatment.
In the U.K., for example, cervical cancer claims a mere 400 lives per year, and in the U.S. it is responsible for about 3,800 deaths yearly – most of which are due to not getting regular Pap smears.
Does that truly constitute a public health emergency of such magnitude that it requires mandatory vaccination of all girls aged 11-26?
And, since the HPV vaccine does not prevent ALL types of HPV, you must continue getting regular Pap smears anyway, or risk ending up with undiagnosed and therefore potentially deadly cervical cancer, which makes you wonder why you’d really need the vaccine in the first place.
This vaccine campaign is so high on hyped-up fear and so deficient in logic, it boggles the mind.
Like Dr. Diane Harper, professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, stated:
“Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women’s group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people — it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now.”
The Truth is, Your Daughters DO NOT Need this Vaccine!
All they need is a healthy, robust immune system to help clear up HPV on its own, which it does in 90 percent of all cases.
For more in-depth information on what HPV is, under what circumstances it might cause cervical cancer, and how to keep HPV at bay without any drugs or vaccines, please review my earlier article, Why Use Vaccine for HPV When Green Tea Works?
Is the HPV Vaccine Worth the Risk?
Researchers are finally raising serious questions as to whether the HPV vaccine is really worth the risks involved. An editorial in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) outlines the rising concerns.
First, Gardasil's long-term effectiveness is unclear. And because cervical cancer takes years to develop, critics say the current information is insufficient to determine whether Gardasil works. Then there’s the issue of side effects. FDA records reveal that, since Gardasil's approval, nearly 9,000 girls had adverse side effects after receiving their shots.
If you’ve been a regular reader of my newsletter, you’ll have noticed that each time I cover another article on HPV, the body count for adverse side effects from this vaccine has risen by several hundred or more… For example, on June 24th, I reported there were more than 6,700 adverse effects reported. Two months later, almost to the day, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons state 8,864 reports have been filed.
Folks, this is a major CLUE!
Along with NEJM, the organization Judicial Watch has also published a damaging Special Report about the Gardasil vaccine. Based on records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), they summarized the approval process, side effects, safety concerns, and marketing practices related to the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, calling it a “large-scale public health experiment.”
One of their most startling findings was the incidence of 78 cases of outbreaks of warts following the vaccination in women already infected without knowing it. In addition to genital warts, some women experienced large outbreaks on their face, hands, or feet.
Additionally, Gardasil was found to have an efficacy rate of –44.6% (that’s a minus sign) in women already exposed to the HPV types included in the vaccine!
Judicial Watch also uncovered that Gardasil was tested against an aluminum-containing placebo, rather than a nonreactive saline base, which can make the vaccine appear safer than it actually is – which appears to be the case, if you ask me.
The Insanity Continues
Despite all the risks uncovered and the skyrocketing incident reports of harm, vaccine proponents want to move on to the next frontier: older women, and young boys.
Dr. Raffle, a British cervical cancer specialist said it best: “Oh, dear. If we give it to boys, then all pretense of scientific worth and cost analysis goes out the window.”
I believe the mere suggestion already goes to show that this vaccine is nothing more than a cash-cow, offering little proof of any benefits whatsoever, especially considering how easily cervical cancer can be prevented without it.
Virginia Residents – Know Your Rights in 2009!
Although some 24 U.S. states are deliberating mandatory inoculation with Gardasil for school-aged children, Virginia is the only state to pass a bill requiring the vaccine for middle-school entry, which will take effect in 2009.
Fortunately, according to a spokeswoman for the governor, the state’s vaccination program has included unusually broad freedom to decline the shot. Normally, in order to exempt your child from a vaccine, you’d have to provide a medical reason. But for Gardasil, no medical reason is required; you only need to sign the appropriate opt-out form.
Be “One Less” To Get GardasilThere is absolutely no reason to risk the serious side effects of this vaccine to prevent an infection that goes away on its own 90 percent of the time. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll be protected anyway, since you can still get HPV once you’ve had the vaccine.
It is really a no-win situation for those who receive it. Instead, a better message would be to remind all young girls that they can radically reduce their risk of getting HPV in the first place if they follow safe-sex practices, or wait to have sex until they’re in a committed relationship.
Also remember that keeping your immune system in tip-top shape will help you shake any HPV virus you may have contracted, without the use of drugs.
An excellent new book by British journalist Janine Roberts has just been published called “Fear of the Invisible: How scared should we be of Viruses and Vaccines, HIV and AIDS?” It is the result of over 10 years of painstaking investigation into the murky, Mengeloid world of virology and vaccines. However much you think you know about this issue I promise you there is more – some of virology’s best-kept secrets have been revealed in this hard-hitting exposé (and certainly made my hair stand on end). It is not exaggeration to say that were this information presented in a court of law some of the top boffins at the NIH and CDC would be up on charges of wilful genocide!
Hi Rogway, good to see you back
Mendacious
Execrable
Recidivist
Callous
Hi StoicI did read Duesberg’s book – and it was excellent. Janine Roberts has written from a completely different perspective – that of an investigative journalist who gets drawn into a world where nothing is as it seems. She has precisely documented the great stinking pile of excrement that was pulled out of Gallo’s nether regions and that underpins the whole edifice that is HIV-AIDS pseudoscience. She has even put copies of the original studies (you know, the ones that purported to “prove” HIV causes AIDS?) in the appendices and you can see for yourself exactly HOW Gallo committed this monstrous fraud. The last couple of chapters cover ideas and theories that I have discussed and read on another forum, but have yet to see in a popular book. They will blow some people’s minds.
She also writes about other really interesting issues of “bait and switch” in virology such as the equally fraudulent polio and other vaccine “science”, and the statistical shenanigans that organisations like the CDC get up to. I like that she puts herself in the context of her journey and describes her feelings about these horrible discoveries – it makes the book more human somehow.
While we are on the subject, there was also a dynamite article by an LA investigator called Clark Baker entitled Gallo’s Egg. It should have been BIG news but we all know how well controlled the popular mass media is. Anyway, thearticle is long, but well worth the read.
Hi Stoic – you can call me what you like so long as it doesn’t require censorship :-P
There is Tween 80 (polysorbate) in the HPV vaccine (Google HPV vaccine patentstorm), which has apparently been demonstrated to cause infertility in mice. I haven’t been able to find the original studies so I’m not sure how generalisable they are to human populations.
I saw the exchange between Bob and Bobby. I’m afraid I don’t have any answers on the VLCFA issue. I have read Ray Peat’s writing on the subject but I also have a lot of respect for Mary Enig’s work. She has not been able to debate this issue with Dr Peat because I understand she is regrettably unwell. It’s not something I have delved into deeply enough, so until I do I remain rather conflicted on the issue. For me it’s kind of a moot point anyway because fish oil makes me feel yuck.
I did a review on Amazon.com (Part 1):
There will be much squirming and discomfiture in the hallowed halls of medical science when the truths in this book become more widely disseminated. From the frighteningly dirty (literally as well as figuratively) "scientific" methods that produce the state-mandated vaccines injected in increasing numbers into our innocent children, to the massive fraud perpetrated by the giant ego that is pseudologist Robert Gallo, this book will shock you - and rightly so. While many are well aware that Gallo narrowly escaped prosecution for scientific fraud over the "foundation" AIDS research, most are likely unfamiliar with the logistics and scope of this fraud. Ms. Roberts has provided the "smoking gun" in the form of copies of original documents that demonstrate unequivocally, exactly how this monstrous misdeed was perpetrated.
Ms. Roberts' journey begins with an earnest request from friends to discover whether a measles and rubella (MR) vaccine could have terribly damaged their precious child. With nothing more than a vague understanding of what constitutes viral illness she undertook to find out more about the science underlying virology and immunisation - a feat she has achieved to an astounding degree. What started as a small investigation into the MR vaccination campaign unfolded into a 10-year quest to try and discover why the large pachyderm is squatting in the front room making a large stinking mess while science pretends it's a necessary accoutrement in its selfless, seemingly Sisyphean, noble quest.
Part 2:
As a seasoned investigational journalist Roberts pits her wits and intelligent curiosity into dissecting a science (so inscrutable to the lay person that most would be led gibbering and screaming to a padded cell at the nearest mental facility) and emerges with a clear, factual account of the predominantly venal, self-serving science of virology.
The implications contained within this book are staggering. Large taxpayer-funded health institutions have been wantonly complicit in this patronising perfidy and accountability should be demanded from the upper (and lower) echelons of these organisations - their remit is purportedly safeguarding the health of the population, not conspiring to destroy it. The well-documented, reprehensible lack of concern about the contamination of vaccines, the propaganda and fear-mongering employed by these authorities and the impact on people's health, psyches and lives across the globe deserve thorough investigation, at the highest levels of government, and appropriate retributive measures need to be undertaken.
With meticulous detail, the execrable, pathetic "science" is unmasked, unfrocked and dethroned by Ms. Roberts' excellent investigation; the Emperor is as butt-naked as the day his umbilical cord was cut.
PPARGammaGirl:
An excellent book that draws back the cover of the horrors that we a free nation are involved in. Something you would think would only be possible in a Nazi Germany, or Communist Russia. The things nightmares are made of, and this aint Science Fiction, this is real.
GammaGirl, thanks so much for letting us know about this book - I'm halfway through it now. Truly terrifying. I've got a number of people in mind to pass it on to when I'm finished who have small children!!
Not exactly, Ballywho. Depending on whom you consult, it's $360-375 for the series of 3 shots.