Posted on 08/26/2009 5:11:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
I sat at a picnic table listening to various mothers discussing their hectic schedules trying to keep up with teenage daughters, all on the same sports team. When one mother told of squeezing in an appointment that morning to get her daughter the HPV shot that her doctor recommended, the conversation turned to the necessity to "protect" their girls in such troubling times. I stayed quiet, hoping to learn the values guiding these parents' decisions. Predictably, they had not thought through the issues, nor did they know the facts.
Those mothers were merely following doctors' recommendations and that of all the experts. Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, was approved in 2006 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for females as young as nine and up to age 26. It has been marketed as a protection against four types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). Merck, the company that makes Gardasil, claims that the drug will protect against two types of HPV that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers and two types that cause 90 percent of genital warts. Every federal health authority recommends the shots and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about a quarter of the nation's 13-17 year olds have received the immunizations. The vaccine is on the CDC's vaccine schedule for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it.
Even so, some physicians remain wary of the trend to give young children a new, largely untried drug. A study in a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research revealed that about half of the doctors in a survey of over a thousand physicians in Texas did not routinely recommend Gardasil for their pre-teen patients.
What those Texas doctors suspected, we now know for sure - that serious concerns are legitimate regarding the use of Gardasil. The highly-promoted, so-called breakthrough vaccine that was recommended for all girls and given to numerous children and teens to prevent possible future cases of cervical cancer, is related to "adverse events" experienced by thousands of girls after taking the vaccine.
In a just-released article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, federal researchers report that after analyzing 12,424 "adverse events" [out of the 13,758 reports of problems as of May 1] voluntarily reported by girls vaccinated with Gardasil that two problems are common. One - fainting - is not inherently serious, but can be if the girl falls and hits her head. The other side effect - "dangerous blood clots" - is quite troubling. Most of the problems with Gardasil (93 percent) are minor: headache, nausea, and fever. But a disturbing seven percent included hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death.
"Adverse events" is a terribly clinical sounding description of such tragic outcomes. Perhaps more people should read the personal account of Jenny, a University of California, Berkeley professor's daughter who lost her life after getting the shot. (See Jenny's blog here)
Few parents would want their child to be among the 39 deaths to girls who had just taken the Gardasil shot. Nor would most parents want their child to take the risk of hospitalization, disability, or a life-threatening illness. Accurate information has not been forthcoming, including the fact that many additional reported cases of "adverse effects" had too few details. Thus, those cases were excluded from the study.
Even with the new information, numerous questions remain about the safety as well as the efficacy of the drug. Further, there are questions about the marketing of the drug. In fact, cervical cancer is relatively uncommon in the United States. The American Cancer Society reports under 4,000 deaths per year compared to the 250,000 deaths in other areas of the world, primarily in poor countries.
Plus, there are questions about Merck's grants to professional medical associations who promoted the vaccine's use without fully explaining the risks involved with taking the drug. Some doctors ask if the big push to sell Gardasil is Merck's method of making up the lost sales after their popular anti-pain medication Vioxx was banned. These facts raise questions about the appropriateness of recommending such a high-risk drug for widespread use among American children and teenagers.
In the wake of all the side effects, Merck has added warnings to the label on the drug. The warnings on all the labels state that some children receiving Gardasil have subsequent problems, such as autoimmune diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, paralysis, and seizures. Further, some doctors worry that not enough young girls were included in the clinical trials of the drug; they believe that there is really no way to know how pre-teen and teenage girls will react to such a high-powered vaccine. Merck acknowledges that the drug is effective for only five years, so giving the drug to 11 to 12 year olds hardly seems warranted.
Critics are especially concerned about the risk-benefit ratio of taking the HPV vaccine. Gardasil is very costly and most physicians recommend that women continue to get Pap smears, even if they have taken Gardasil. The known benefit of the regular Pap smear screening in preventing most cases of cervical cancer makes the benefit of the HPV risk uncertain.
In fact, Those mothers around that picnic table and the thousands of other parents concerned about the well-being of their daughters need to have all the facts and know the risks involved before subjecting their little girls to this new vaccine. States need to have these facts before discussing the possibility of mandating the vaccines for all pre-teen and teenage girls.
Well, being dead seems like a long-term effect to me.
Yep, and cancer will do that WAY more often than a vaccine will.
Flawed thinking, pal. You only die once, so cancer will not kill any one person any more often than anything else.
But a vaccine can't kill you if you don't get it (probability=zero).
Let me put it another way, since the onset of the disease is behaviourally controlled, first, and controlled by whether the person the behaviour is engaged in with has the disease, second.
Let's take a parallel. Let's say there was a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. The vaccine "only" killed 50 of every 100,000 people who got it. Would you get the vaccine? Would you support making the vaccine mandatory for premenstrual girls, prepubescent children, adults, anyone?
Huh? What does a made-up "let's say" scenario have to do with anything?
Let's say that FReeping made your arms fall off. Would you ever encourage your friends to do it??? WOULD YOU???
Pfffft.
The FACT is that Gardasil may have killed as many as 20 out of 16 MILLION. Every medication can cause death, depending on the circumstances. I don't believe these figures are out of line.
Cars kill thousands every day, yet you still drive one. There's a benefit that outweighs the risk.
It is obvious that Gardisil provides a benefit that FAR outweighs the risks involved. I will absolutely make sure my daughter is vaccinated when she's older.
Despite your diatribe, Gardasil only provides a benefit if your daughter is sexually active. IF she is at risk of catching the HPV, and that IF she engages in 'relations' with someone who has it.
The risk exists whether ot not she fulfils those conditions, if she gets the vaccine.
As for my little girl, it makes just as much sense to pay for her car insurance at the ripe old age of 9 as it does to get the vaccine.
You want your kid to be a lab rat, that is between you and her. Just don't go forcing it on others.
In case you are incapable of understanding my other post, it involves a disease which people are only at risk for if they engage in certain acts with people who have the disease. If you or yours do not fall into the risk group, you might opt out.
That was the point you missed.
Good luck, I hope your kid stays healthy whatever your choice.
My Gyno recommended the vaccine to me last year. I told him I’m married and have no plans of ever having to be with another man for the rest of my life, so no thank you. He had the audactiy to say that maybe my husband wouldn’t reciprocate my vow to him and then what would I do. I said, “I guess you could be right, however, I didn’t marry a pig.”
I found a new gyno, needless to say.
Well said.
But apparently the islamists-by-a-different-name here want their children to die for misbehavior of themselves or a future spouse.
You know, because they deserve it.
Well said. It’s hard to imagine a professional would be that crass but I guess they are out there.
Good data and a thoughtful response. Well done.
bttt
Without qualified scientific bounds and basis for the statement, that fact looks a bit like heresay to me. Absent qualified scientific bounds and basis of course.
This is not a disease issue - it's a child-abuse issue!
Prove that statement with real facts.
Not disagreeing with your point, just your numbers. The post notes that
"
Thirty nine of 12,424 "adverse events" is approximately 0.3% of adverse events.
In my opinion real reporting would have put the numbers into perspective overall - for example 39 of 1 million doses is 0.004%. But that doesn't fit the mold of what is typically a liberals method of distorting, uhm, I mean reporting.
Is this how the global warming hysteria got legs...?
Where on the box, or in the commercials, or in the doctors office, does anyone state that this vaccine protects a person from a "whole host of deadly STD's"?
Just because you can't fix stupid doesn't mean that a vaccination that can help prevent a very serious medical problem is a bad choice for someone to make...
From the post, 39 deaths have been reported as "attributed" to the vaccine out of 12,424 adverse events. That percentage is ~0.3%. Considering this is a value based on the information provided in the post, how do you equate the risk of death from the vaccine (0.3% per adverse event - not total vaccinations) to an average five year death rate for cervical cancer cases of 29%?
Mostly curious how your math works out...
Actually, if it gives a false sense of security which increases the risk for more serious diseases than it IS a bad choice to make.
What I meant, however long ago that post was, is that if children as young as 10 or 12 are being exposed to HPV, those children are being sexually abused, by definition.
My math works out on the fact that this is a vaccine that is not 100% effective, and the study of long term effects of the vaccine are not known.
This vaccine “works” when it works, and it doesn’t work all the time, by mucking with a persons autoimmune system. It can take years if not decades for long term side effects to even show, let alone be properly traced back to the cause.
Lets do the math again .3% of the people who get the vaccine have dropped dead of it. Now, lets take a statistical sample of even developing cervical cancer shall we.
Every year about 4000 women die from cervical cancer, in a population of 150 Million. That means the odds of dying from cervical cancer per year are .002% in any given year.
Gardisil’s death rate over the year and a half its been around is 39, over a far smaller population.. so .3% is far larger over 1.5 years than .002% per year.
So, lets see, .3% death per 1.5 years, generally at a very young age, or .002% death rate per year on a much older population... Yea, my math holds up just fine, you might want to re-examine yours.
Back to - can't fix stupid.
Either that or gross negligence. I would have no problem with running a doctor or pharma company through the ringer which claimed in any way deliverables which create such a false sense of security.
Till then, stupid is as stupid does.
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