Posted on 02/20/2007 2:40:48 PM PST by presidio9
Merck & Co. is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company's new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance, the company said late Tuesday.
The drugmaker had been criticized by parents and doctors' groups for quietly funding the campaign via a third party to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.
Some had objected because the vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted disease, human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer. Vaccines mandated for school attendance usually are for diseases easily spread through casual contact
Great news.
Naw, something else happened. What are the long term effects?? How long is it good for?? No one knows!!!
Are you kidding me? Think of all the 11 year old girls who now will risk cervical cancer when they have unprotected sex. This is an atrocity is what it is...
Somehow this has just GOT to be Bush's fault...
True. The underlying assumption about this vaccine is that young girls will have sex. And that it's casual sex with guys who have multiple partners or they themselves have multiple partners and are exposed to HPV.
The clinical study was only for 6 months, and some of the side effects included convulsions. Their clinical study only had 1000 people and 82 had side effects. Those numbers call for more clincial studies, using volunteers not our children.
Someone tell me what the status is with texas on this? Still going to mandate it or did the gov back down?
Since the onset of puberty is variable, the vaccine to 11 yr-olds is to ensure that immunity will be conferred by the time of puberty, not to protect 11 yr-olds from the ravages of promiscuity.
Did the convulsions occur at the time of the injections, or later?
Could you cite that study, please?
I will see if I can find the article. I believe it was on a life site. Will get back to you with urls ASAP.
I am sorry I don't have a citation, but I read several girls fainted and received head injuries from falling immediately after the shot.
I also read there were several seizure episodes.
I wonder if Govenor Goodhair's stock options are taking a hit with this decision....
Thank you both. I am interested in this. My daughters (17 and 21) both received the first guardasil shot about 5 days ago. Neither has had any side affects other than pain at the injection site.
Reactions are typically downplayed and called "anecdotal".
My nephew is severely brain damaged from a DPT shot. I wouldn't worry as much about reactions in an older person.
Their brains and immune systems are more mature.
The National Vaccine Information Center yesterday warned state officials to investigate the safety of a breakthrough cancer vaccine as Texas became the first state to make the vaccine mandatory for school-age girls.
Negative side effects of Gardasil, a new Merck vaccine to prevent the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, are being reported in the District of Columbia and 20 states, including Virginia. The reactions range from loss of consciousness to seizures.
"Young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision and some girls have lost consciousness during what appear to be seizures," said Vicky Debold, health policy analyst for the National Vaccine Information Center, a nonprofit watchdog organization that was created in the early 1980s to prevent vaccine injuries.
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