Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: exDemMom
If you think that that article represented solid scientific method or sound statistical analyses, then that only reflects that your understanding of either is rudimentary, at best.

I believe beyond any doubt the studies performed and analyzed by Dr. Harper represent solid scientific method and statistical analysis. These were, after all, the very studies the FDA reviewed in their Gardasil evaluation. Furthermore, I feel Harper has done an excellent job presenting the information derived from the studies in a very level-headed, unbiased, and clinical manner. Dr. Harper is "an international expert in HPV science, its vaccines, its clinical disease and treatment". Yes, I trust her documented and reviewed assessment far more than I do your sensationalism. It is interesting I have no problem gleaning information from the interview where you derive no significance. If that makes my understanding "rudimentary" in your opinion, so be it. I'm in good company.

No, you didn't mention those. But I can find no other logical explanation ...

Perhaps you have a strong bias and cannot, or are unwilling to, step away from it to see a larger picture. Do what you will with your own body. You are not past the age at which an HPV vaccination would do you any good. Age has nothing to do with it. Exposure is key, and predominantly sexual exposure at that. Be celibate and take your risks, or get vaccinated and take your risks, or do neither and take your risks. But do not presume for a moment the authority to make that decision for me.

...for why you are so totally against a vaccine that is as safe as any other vaccine on the market

Because I suspect Gardasil killed Christina Tarsell and Jenny Tetlock among others. Because I suspect it has done irreparable harm to Donielle Richardson and Ashley Ryburn among others. I don't want to be killed or left with a degenerative auto-immunity. Even more so I would spare this from those I love. You say it's safe. I don't believe you. A battle with cancer is a preferable risk in my opinion. It's that simple whether you find the explanation logical or not. But, by all means, get your three shots and tell us how it went ... or continue being hypocritical.

157 posted on 12/26/2011 4:27:52 PM PST by so_real ( "The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 156 | View Replies ]


To: so_real
All I can say is that I'm embarrassed for you, for your continued display of profound ignorance.

The Huffington Post is not a peer-reviewed journal. Its muddled account of what this scientist said does not constitute "solid scientific method and statistical analysis." Although you claim you "trust her documented and reviewed assessment far more than I do your sensationalism", have you actually read any of Dr. Harper's work published in a peer-reviewed medical journal? I seriously doubt it. Nor do I think you'd understand it if you had. You might like to know that, while you're dragging Dr. Harper's name around to try to support your anti-vaccination opinion, in actual peer-review literature, Dr. Harper promotes both HPV vaccines and PAP testing.

Merely throwing the words "scientific method" and "statistical analysis" around does not prove anything. You have not demonstrated that you understand what either term means. Can you explain, in general terms, what the scientific method is? Do you know anything about statistics? Can you explain when, for example, applying Student's t-test to a data set is appropriate, when it would be more appropriate to apply the ANOVA test, or when the data requires a different test to get the same kind of result? Do you know what regression analysis and confidence intervals are, and what they are supposed to show?

And congratulations, for having found the names of two girls who allegedly died, coincidentally after receiving a Gardasil vaccine. Guess what--putting names to girls that die of unrelated causes after receiving Gardasil STILL does not indict the Gardasil vaccine. I, of course, cannot publish names of any of the hundreds of thousands of people who develop HPV disease every year, or of the thousands of people who die of HPV caused cancer every year--as a medical professional, I would go to jail for doing that. Their anonymity doesn't make them any less real, or their suffering any less tragic.

I'll just point out here that your mathematical ability must be incredibly weak. Most grade-schoolers have the intellectual ability to pick up on the fact that thousands of deaths per year is, in fact, more deaths than the 71 that are reported to have occurred after HPV vaccinations (but were caused by unrelated medical issues). Either your math ability really is that weak, or my first hypothesis about your motives is correct: you don't care how much death and disease HPV causes, because you believe that people only get it by having immoral physical encounters outside of marriage, and they therefore deserve whatever happens to them as a result.

Your argument that children should only be vaccinated against HPV when they are old enough to understand the miniscule risks from the vaccine is hogwash. Parents make the life-saving decision to vaccinate their children against deadly diseases all the time. Logically, there is no reason for them not to decide to have this vaccine administered, as well. And parents *are* deciding to protect their children from this life-threatening disease: 40 million doses have been administered so far.

Oh, and I'll finish with a little light reading for you. This is an abstract taken from a recent peer-reviewed paper co-authored by Dr. Harper:

In the Phase III PATRICIA study (NCT00122681), the human papillomavirus (HPV)-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine (Cervarix(®) , GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals) was highly efficacious against HPV-16/18 infections and precancerous lesions in women HPV-16/18 deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) negative and seronegative at baseline. We present further data on vaccine efficacy (VE) against HPV-16/18 in the total vaccinated cohort including women who may have been exposed to HPV-16/18 infection before vaccination. In women with no evidence of current or previous HPV-16/18 infection (DNA negative and seronegative), VE was 90.3% (96.1% confidence interval: 87.3-92.6) against 6-month persistent infection (PI), 91.9% (84.6-96.2) against cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)1+ and 94.6% (86.3-98.4) against CIN2+ [97.7% (91.1-99.8) when using the HPV type assignment algorithm (TAA)]. In women HPV-16/18 DNA negative but with serological evidence of previous HPV-16/18 infection (seropositive), VE was 72.3% (53.0-84.5) against 6-month PI, 67.2% (10.9-89.9) against CIN1+, and 68.8% (-28.3-95.0) against CIN2+ [88.5% (10.8-99.8) when using TAA]. In women with no evidence of current HPV-16/18 infection (DNA negative), regardless of their baseline HPV-16/18 serological status, VE was 88.7% (85.7-91.1) against 6-month PI, 89.1% (81.6-94.0) against CIN1+ and 92.4% (84.0-97.0) against CIN2+ [97.0% (90.6-99.5) when using TAA]. In women who were DNA positive for one vaccine type, the vaccine was efficacious against the other vaccine type. The vaccine did not impact the outcome of HPV-16/18 infections present at the time of vaccination. Vaccination was generally well tolerated regardless of the woman's HPV-16/18 DNA or serological status at entry. (Int J Cancer. 2011 Aug 19. doi: 10.1002/ijc.26362. )

Get back to me when you figure out what that abstract actually means, okay?

158 posted on 12/28/2011 5:42:10 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 157 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson