Inconvenient Truths About Gardasil and Swine Flu Vaccines

Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) brings up an important point in this video: the fact that a staggering majority of all adverse reaction reports filed for the HPV vaccine Gardasil are so incomplete they cannot be used to perform the follow-up required to find out what happened, what caused the problem, and most importantly, how to avoid it from happening to others.

Giant Loopholes in Vaccine Safety Monitoring System are Being Used for All They’re Worth

The system for monitoring and following up on adverse health reactions after vaccination is clearly not working, mainly because vaccine manufacturers and doctors administering the shots are not following the law.

As Fisher explains, the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act includes certain informing, recording, and reporting safety provisions. However, doctors and vaccine manufacturers have simply made it common practice to ignore these provisions within the law, despite the fact that they are shielded from any liability for the health problems that do occur!

As a result, the real losers are the parents and children who are not given a clear picture of the potential dangers inherent with the vaccine, while the vaccine manufacturers get a free pass to continue pushing their wares and making a profit without regard for the damage their vaccine causes.

Why You Should Care About Proper Reporting Practices

It’s shocking to find out that 89 percent of the adverse reaction reports filed by Merck were too incomplete to be of any use in the follow-up process. When you add in the fact that Merck’s reports accounted for 70 percent of all reports filed, you end up with a very bleak picture that does nothing to instill confidence that safety is a main concern.

To illustrate my point: if there were a grand total of 100 adverse reaction reports, then 70 of them would have been filed by Merck, and just over 62 of them would be unusable.

So rather than having 100 reports offering clues to what is causing these health problems, including deaths, there are only 48 reports that can be used to investigate and study the effects further.

Adding to the problem is the fact that less than 10 percent of ALL adverse reactions are ever reported. Some studies have even put that number as low as ONE PERCENT!

This is a critical point, because for every adverse reaction report, there may be as many as 99 more similar cases that go unreported. So each and every adverse reaction report becomes extremely important, since it, in reality, represents a FAR greater number of people.

I agree with Fisher when she says that the federal vaccine safety provisions really should be codified into every state vaccine law, and legal sanctions should be imposed against doctors and drug companies who fail to file a complete vaccine reaction report for each and every adverse reaction.

The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) is the only way to eventually discover the potential problems with each and every vaccine. If the only system we have is consistently ignored by those who stand to profit from continued ignorance about the risks involved with a vaccine, then countless children will continue to be needlessly harmed each and every year.

Scientists are Starting to Turn on Gardasil

Two recent articles published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) highlight the very valid concerns about the fast-tracked HPV vaccine, Gardasil. I find it comforting that doctors and scientists are finally beginning to seriously question whether the benefits of Gardasil truly outweigh its risk.

It’s also nice to see that the marketing strategies employed for this unnecessary vaccine are being questioned.

The first JAMA article states,

“… the messages and the methods by which the vaccine was marketed present important challenges to physician practice and medical professionalism.

… The vaccine manufacturer also provided educational grants to professional medical associations (PMAs) concerned with adolescent and women's health and oncology. The funding encouraged many PMAs to create educational programs and product-specific speakers' bureaus to promote vaccine use.

However, much of the material did not address the full complexity of the issues surrounding the vaccine and did not provide balanced recommendations on risks and benefits.” [Emphasis mine.]

The second article in the same issue of JAMA points out the fact that the issue of cervical cancer, and the potential to avoid it through vaccination, is far more complex than what it’s being made out to be. The researchers state,

“First, there are more than 100 different types of HPV and at least 15 of them are oncogenic. The current vaccines target only 2 oncogenic strains: HPV-16 and HPV-18.

Second, the relationship between infection at a young age and development of cancer 20 to 40 years later is not known. HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection, with an estimated 79 percent infection rate over a lifetime. The virus does not appear to be very harmful because almost all HPV infections are cleared by the immune system.

In a few women, infection persists and some women may develop precancerous cervical lesions and eventually cervical cancer. It is currently impossible to predict in which women this will occur and why. Likewise, it is impossible to predict exactly what effect vaccination of young girls and women will have on the incidence of cervical cancer 20 to 40 years from now.

The true effect of the vaccine can be determined only through clinical trials and long-term follow-up.”

Risks Versus Benefits

In my opinion, the potential risks of Gardasil FAR outweigh the perception of ANY potential benefits, and the HPV vaccine, and next to hepatitis B vaccine, it is one of the most unnecessary vaccines on the market.

It’s common knowledge that 90 percent of all human papilloma virus (HPV) cases clear up on their own within two years, and do not lead to cervical cancer. The CDC even admits to this fact on their website.

And, as long as you’re getting regular PAP smears, cervical cancer can be caught in its early, and easily treatable, stages.

Aside from that, there are other, safer, preventive methods that offer far greater protection against HPV than the vaccine. For example, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study, the use of condoms reduces the incidence of HPV by 70 percent.

Meanwhile, some of the more serious risks of the HPV vaccine include:

• Hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis
• Guillain-Barre syndrome
• Transverse myelitis (a neurological disorder caused by inflammation in your spinal cord)
• Pancreatitis
• Venous thromboembolic events
• Miscarriage

As stated in JAMA,

“Whether a risk is worth taking depends on the relationship between the potential risk and the potential benefit. If the potential benefits are substantial, most individuals would be willing to accept the risks. But the net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain.

Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened. So rationally she should be willing to accept only a small risk of harmful effects from the vaccine.

When weighing evidence about risks and benefits, it is also appropriate to ask who takes the risk, and who gets the benefit.

Patients and the public logically expect that only medical and scientific evidence is put on the balance.

If other matters weigh in, such as profit for a company or financial or professional gains for physicians or groups of physicians, the balance is easily skewed. The balance will also tilt if the adverse events are not calculated correctly.”

These are all sensible conclusions, and definitely worth considering before you agree to vaccinate your child with any vaccine.

For simple, common sense guidelines to protect yourself, or teach your daughter to protect herself from HPV, please see this previous article.

Will Careful Follow-Up of Swine Flu Vaccine Really Happen?

The answer to that question is most likely no. Because just like Gardasil, side effects are most likely going to be grossly under-reported, especially if the shots are administered in a school setting.

Schools will not be able to properly check medical records, update vaccine records, keep track of adverse events in the weeks and months following, or properly report any problems that they do find.

I agree with Fisher: this is NOT the way to conduct a vaccination program.