Posted on 02/17/2009 7:14:40 AM PST by BGHater
A Wichita teen and her mother want a popular vaccine taken off the market. Doctors say Gardasil is killing the 16-year-old.
The drug is used to prevent the HPV virus which causes cervical cancer. The makers of Gardasil recommend girls and young women ages 9-26 get the vaccine to protect them from the virus that causes cervical cancer.
Twenty-eight women have reportedly died from Gardasil.
Sixteen-year-old Gabi Swank used to be a cheerleader, a gymnast and a 4.0 student at Wichita's South High, but after getting the Gardasil vaccination last year, her health deteriorated quickly.
She's had two mini strokes, seizures and swelling of all the tissues in her body. She even has paralysis on the right side of her face. After months of testing, doctors finally pointed to Gardasil as the cause.
"I want this drug off the market. I want it off the market," said Swank from her home.
The CDC and the FDA say they have received thousands of reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine, but the government adds, it continues to find that the benefits of Gardasil outweigh the risks.
They quit using Macaque monkey kidneys.
Of course, since they didn’t run trials on 14-year-olds, they don’t really know whether the death rate in that group matches placebos.
Which probably isn’t true anyway. If the death rate and causes matched the placebo group, that would indicate the drug had no real side effects. But we know the drug has side effects that can cause death.
If the drug has ANY side effects that can cause death, and unless the drug also has a side effect that PREVENTS a death, the number of deaths expected in the control group would be lower than in the drug group.
And since I presume they wouldn’t let women in the placebo group go untreated for HPV once they were detected with it, nor would they let them go untreated for cervical cancer, and since most cervical cancer deaths are due to lack of treatment, the fact that gardisil prevents a small number of untreated cervical cancer deaths would be of no help to it for the purpose of the study.
You are correct. But the point was that you claimed the drug was safe and effective, when the trial cannot possibly tell you that over the long term.
All the trial can show is that during the time covered by the trial, people reacted in a particular way.
Of course, for most vaccines we have a lot more years under our belt. And in fact, most vaccines had a lot more years of use before they were mandated, showing that the mandate was applied in a different manner for this particular problem than for most problems.
Thank you for the ping. I’m still not convinced the Autism study they announced last week is all it was cracked up to be... but they have known from the start this is a bad, bad vaccine.
But your comparison is inexact, because smoking is medically a bad thing to do, and something that most people would be better off not doing, while sex is something that we expect most people WILL do at some point, and which is a natural activity which is not something doctors would generally tell you to avoid.
I don’t think my doctor has ever given me a medical opinion about guns in my house though :-)
Same here, but we do the homeopathic flu vaccine.
Gardicil only vaccinates against a few forms of HPV. I can’t remember if all the forms of HPV it works on are sexually transmitted or not.
One risk of Gardicil is the “implied protection” risk. Someone get’s a vaccine, assumes they are good to go, and forgoes testing that would catch HPV or cancer.
So the recommendation is to still do the exact same tests whether or not you take the drug. And since most HPV is detectable and treatable, and most cervical cancer is detectable and treatable, the fact that Gardicil would prevent some forms of HPV isn’t as big a deal as it first seems.
If everybody got the yearly exams that are recommended, Gardicil probably wouldn’t save enough extra people to be worth the risk.
I also mentioned eating. Is not eating necessary? Is it not a natural activity? In fact it is more essential than sex. Yet doctors tell people to eat less all the time.
No we don't. Show me in the peer reviewed medical literature where this claim has been substantiated.
And since I presume they wouldnt let women in the placebo group go untreated for HPV once they were detected with it, nor would they let them go untreated for cervical cancer, and since most cervical cancer deaths are due to lack of treatment, the fact that gardisil prevents a small number of untreated cervical cancer deaths would be of no help to it for the purpose of the study.
I don't understand your point. The studies showed that vaccinated women who were HPV naive (not previously infected) had virtually no cases of pre-cancerous changes in the cervix. Since the time from infection to the development of frank cancer is approx. 20 years pre-cancer, and not cancer, was the study endpoint. The vaccine is certainly effective.
Gardasil protects against HPV types 16 and 18 which cause 70% of all cervical cancers. It also prevents types 6 and 11 which cause 90% of genital warts. All four types are sexually transmitted.
One risk of Gardicil is the implied protection risk. Someone gets a vaccine, assumes they are good to go, and forgoes testing that would catch HPV or cancer.
This is a legitimate concern and will require patient counseling and education.
If everybody got the yearly exams that are recommended, Gardicil probably wouldnt save enough extra people to be worth the risk.
30% of women who develop cervical cancer in this country are screened regularly. The Pap Smear is not perfect. And, of course, many women are not screened as they should be.
The supposed vaccine-autism link had been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. There is no link.
That's pretty much what I've been trying to say.
Its promotion has been a hugely successful lobbying and PR campaign. The lobbying for the state mandates may have gotten shot down, but the PR campaign continues.
I'm the person who mentioned the requirement for 6th grade. It is the State, not the school that mandates it. Thanks to the multi-million dollar lobbying effort of Merck. And the idiocy of the Republican controlled House of Delegates in Virginia.
My daughter will be entering 6th grade in September, and she will not be receiving this vaccine.
Percentage of deaths were .0000258%
Gardasil has no benefits.
That is just point blank not true.
I will fight the mandating of such a vaccine for children as young as 9. but I will not agree it has no benefits for older females.
According to some posters on this thread they did run such trials. I have never seen such, but..........
Poor girl. Prayers for her health.
I will amend that to it benefits few. It doesn’t work on someone who has a different HPV, or has already had an HPV or gets cancer without an HPV present. And I would NEVER give it to a prepubescent girl. Long term affects are still unknown. That all sounds kinda “iffy” to me but some may believe it to be worth the risk.
A statement so obvious is both facetious and true. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Thanks for your informative posts on this topic.
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