"Gardasil never tested in girls under 15 years old" says whistleblower Diane Harper

[HotI]

The thing that gets me is that everyone seems to think it's a 'cancer' vaccine. It's not. It's a HERPES vaccine, and herpes is not responsible for 100% of cervical cancers, so personally I see no point in it. You can't 'catch' cancer from sleeping with someone, but you sure can catch herpes or any number of infections/diseases. I'll let my girls make an informed choice when they're old enough to have done the research and can choose what's best for them, but I still think the smarter option is to a) have as few sexual partners as possible and b) when you do sleep with someone, use protection! (Although I do know that condoms won't 100% prevent genital herpes, but it's a good start.)

However, they do know that cancer in some people is caused by the strains of HPV that the vaccine is targetted to. So, if you have the vaccine, and it works for you, you are protected against a certain % of cervical cancers. If this is proven, i think this is better than no protection.

Your plan for your kids is great in theory, and hopefully they will use protection every time (and their partner is tested before they stop using protection), but reality is that not every young person uses protection every time. And it only takes one exposure to the HPV to then be at risk of cervical cancer.

I don't know if this vaccine is the answer, but the idea is a good one. I feel that even though it can't cover all causes of cervical cancer, it can reduce the risks.

[tenar]

Vaccines are not totally safe.

They are, however, a whole lot safer than the diseases they are used to protect against.

It's like seatbelts. Seatbelts are not totally safe. You can be injured by a seatbelt. You can be injured by an airbag, too. But we all understand that these things actually make cars safer because there is much much more chance of being injured because you weren't wearing a seatbelt than of being injured because you were wearing one. Ditto with airbags. So we all, I'm sure, belt in our children and would buy cars with airbags if we could. Because it makes us safer. Even though there is a risk associated with using those safety devices.

Now, someone might argue that they will never crash their car. But we all understand that even if one person is a perfect driver, not everyone is. So you can't be totally protected from car accidents unless you never use a road at all, not even to cross it walking. It's like that with diseases. We would all like to think that our children won't be exposed to diseases, but the fact is that we can't protect them from exposure entirely. It's impossible. All we can do is to reduce the risk for them if they are exposed. Like we reduce the risk for them if they are in a car accident. So we vaccinate. Or we use seatbelts. Same idea entirely.

Now, the odd thing is, as far as I'm concerned, is that it is illegal not to use seatbelts in cars. But it is not illegal not to vaccinate your kids (or yourself). There is community consensus that matches the research. But there is obviously not community consensus about vaccinations, even though the research supporting them is just as strong as that supporting seatbelts. (Actually it's probably stronger - vaccination is getting an awful lot of research these days, and scientifically there is as much consensus as you ever get from scientists about anything at all). My guess is that this is because car accidents are somehow more concrete, so the risks about those are easier for people in general to understand. So the laws about seatbelts got passed a generation ago, and everyone understands why we use them, and everyone agrees on the need for them, to reduce the risks.

[LimeSlice]

Vaccines are not totally safe.

They are, however, a whole lot safer than the diseases they are used to protect against.
.

That is not actuallythe case at all - this is the issue. There are MANY illnesses that are NOT as dangerous as the vaccine can be for you. Chicken Pox is the glaring example of this.

But this is not supposed to be a Vax Dabate.
It is purely about the testing and targeting issues of vaccines - the Cervical Cancer Vaccine in particular.

And without the appropriate testing there is no way for anyone to categorically say that they are safe.

The fact that they have even called it a "Cervical Cancer Vaccine" is the most miseading piece of propaganda I have ever heard!
It is NOT a cervical cancer vaccine!!

But the fact that they are giving it to children they havent tested it on is a disgrace.
I have heard the argument that it is "unethical" to test on chicldren, pregnant women...
Well what are you doing when you are giving them en masse an UNtested intravenous injection of chemicals and drugs?? How is that more ethical?
I just don;t understand why we are so desperate to find a magical cure for something that we would put more lives at risk.

[BellyBelly]

I'm not willing to risk a vaccine on my children which we have absolutely no idea what it might do to their bodies - short or long term. What is in the vaccine is a problem, as is the fact they're telling us to give this to our children without even knowing how it could affect them... this is not good. We are giving something to them which we have no idea what it could do so how can they call it safe?

Was it acceptable for them to induce VBAC women with what they said was 'safe' misoprostol in the 1990's? How come it took them almost a decade to work out that it was the cause for many ruptured uteruses and dead babies? Everyone needs to start questioning safe - by whose standards? Certainly not a simple assurance from the pharmaceutical company making the drug as well as millions of dollars along with it. Where is the proof of this safety? Why are lead researchers all coming out one by one blowing the whistle?

Blindly accepting an untested vaccine is asking for trouble - it's no wonder disasters happen.... many many drugs and vaccines are not tested or not tested properly. It's just not a risk I want to take.

[Eenee]

well said Kelly!

Before I was before I was educated on vaccines i used to get them, now i know better.

[kawazuki]

before a vax can be given in australia it has to go through so much testing. its has to be approved by the therapuetic goods act, and a few other agencies that deem it safe for use. its the same as any medication.

it is then monitored closely and any reaction is listed on a database.
if you want true AUSTRALIAN statistics go the department fo health or beuro of statistics it will give u the number of deaths, reactions etc per people immunised.

also the vax used in america is slightly different to here.

nothing in life is 100% safe this we must remember.

also the programme is a school based programme and free. the 16-26 programme has finished, if you havent had your first jab yet you have to pay and i can tell you its around $300 per shot that you pay for out of your pocket. this is the incentive either get it at 13-16 for free or pay $900 later in your life.

the immunisations are tested on the age group they are aimed at. the australian government and Theraputiuc goods act requires this, where as in america it is a requirement. so in australia yes it has been tested on people of the same age as those recieving it as part of the programmes.

[Roryrory]

Personally I am actually quite ok with (IMO) safe, tested vaccines. But to me gardasil seems a bit like circumcision. Take gardasil so if you have sex with a boy you won't get HPV, get circumcised so reduce your risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or pass on HPV to your girlfriend.

Ahhh, what about using a CONDOM?

I won't be giving any daughter of mine this vaccine. And this is from someone who vaccinated both her boys from everything on offer......

[BellyBelly]

It's not even guaranteed to work, they have found the virus already being carried in young children who haven't even had sex before, so proof it's not only contracted though sex. Even if you vaccinate, your child may already be carrying it.

[kawazuki]

everyone is a carrier of most diseases, its how the body reacts to the nonself organism which is the disease as to wether you develop it or not.

there is a thing called herd immunity, basically it goes along the lines of i dont need the vaccine because everyone else will have it so it will be stopped in its tracks before i catch it.
but it doesnt work like that sadly.

[Claire_A]

I have had surgery a few years ago to remove pre-cancerous cells from my cervix. I now have yearly checks to make sure they don't come back. My GP was pushing for me to have the vaccine however when I spoke to my specialist he advised me not to. He said the chance of me getting cervical cancer was so slight because I have regular checkups. He said the vaccine only targets a few strands of HPV and new strands are coming up all the time. I guess my point is, I think it's more important to make sure girls are having regular pap smears than a vaccine that won't protect them 100% anyway. It is a slow spreading cancer so if girls are having regular checkups, it will be caught before it gets to the cancer stage. JMO.

[Oorki Galoorki]

before a vax can be given in australia it has to go through so much testing. its has to be approved by the therapuetic goods act, and a few other agencies that deem it safe for use. its the same as any medication.

7 weeks, so much testing?? that is what the current swine flu vax went through! gardisil went through a minimal amount of testing too..
lots of testing is MANY years not weeks

[tenar]

There is a huge amount of misinformation around about vaccinations. It occurs because:

- most people do not understand the details of how scientific research works. In particular, they don't understand the concept of hypothesis, or the language used for discussing whether or not a hypothesis has been disproved. This means that if you cherry-pick particular sentences from scientific literature, you can make it seem like there is not consensus about vaccination, when actually there is.

Another thing that many people don't understand about science is that science is not perfect. There is almost always some research that seems to contradict the consensus. An example is the 1998 study by Wakefield et al that suggested a connection between vaccination and autism. This study was flawed and has been completely discredited by subsequent research. But there are many people out there who don't realise this, and still believe that those results are accurate.

- most people do not understand statistics and risk assessment. Our brains don't do that very well, which makes it hard to make good judgements about such things. Anti-vaccination literature is full of misleading use of statistics. In many cases in the literature I have read (mostly articles linked from posts on this forum), the statistics quoted actually mean the direct opposite of what they are suggested to mean. Most people don't pick up on those flaws in argument, and the authors of the literature don't actually want to clarify them because they would not then actually have an argument to make.

- there is a lot of misinformation about vaccines online. This misleads people into thinking that the vaccines might be more dangerous than the diseases they protect against. Unfortunately, online anyone can claim to be an expert about something, and it can be very difficult to work out whether they actually are or not. You can do a lot of reading online and still draw the wrong conclusions about the risks of vaccinating compared with the risks of not vaccinating.

- and other stuff goes on, of course, but these are, as far as I can tell, the main issues that cause such controversy in what should actually be a really simple decision for parents to make.

Now, someone mentioned chickenpox earlier. Here are some of the facts about chicken pox:

I am quoting an article written by: Richard Lichenstein, MD, Associate Professor, Pediatric Emergency Department, University of Maryland School of Medicine. I believe the figures are taken from the US population. In the abstract he mentions that:

Varicella also accounts for significant morbidity (4000 hospitalizations per year) and mortality (50-100 deaths per year) in otherwise healthy children; moreover, the annual cost of chickenpox has been estimated at $400 million in medical costs and lost wages in the past.

and later on:

In immunocompromised children, such as those with leukemia, mortality rates from varicella have ranged from 7-28%. The case-fatality rate in the general population is 6.7 case per 100,000.

* Morbidity is due to overwhelming viremia, encephalitis, bacterial superinfection, pneumonia, and Reye syndrome (which is associated with aspirin use). Common complications include secondary staphylococcal or streptococcal infections of the skin and upper respiratory tract, including otitis media. Central nervous system complications include aseptic meningitis and Guillain-Barr? syndrome. Other complications include thrombocytopenia, arthritis, hepatitis, and glomerulonephritis.
* In pregnant women, varicella during the first 20 weeks of gestation can lead to multiple congenital anomalies including limb atrophy, neurologic and ocular abnormalities, as well as growth retardation.
* Infants born to women who have varicella 5 days or fewer before delivery or 2 days postpartum may develop disseminated varicella neonatorum. Hemorrhagic lesions of the liver and lungs characterize this potentially fatal disease.

Now, there is no way that the chickenpox vaccine causes that many deaths. I'm not going to say that it doesn't cause any at all, because I don't know. But if it were causing anything like as many deaths per year as the disease, we would all know about it. It would be impossible to hide - it would be all over the news.

So yes, there is a risk associated with having the vaccination. Like any vaccination. But there is a far greater risk associated with not having the vaccination. That's why it's on the schedule. That's the point.


Anyway, I do realise I'm rather off-topic here. Sorry for that. I just don't like to see people being confused by misinformation, so I speak up.


To get on-topic, my daughter will have the vaccine in question (for cervical cancer) when she is old enough (she's only 6 months now). I know it won't protect her completely, but it will protect her more than I am protected, and that's better than nothing at all. She will also, of course, have plenty of information about the dangers (and benefits) of sexual activity, and hopefully we will be able to teach her to make sensible assessments of risk in that regard, by the time she is sexually active.

[CrankyPants]

Hello,

Could you please supply your source re: trials of Gardasil in girls here in OZ? Also, your source re: the different vaccine for HPV here in OZ? There are only 2 vaccines for HPV: Gardasil and Cervarix. We here in Australia have Gardasil made by Merck.

Check out this website: ThinkTwice Global Vaccine Institute: Avoid Vaccine Reactions

and this one: iansvoice.org/default.aspx

That second one will make you weep.

Thanks!

[tenar]

Check out this website: ThinkTwice Global Vaccine Institute: Avoid Vaccine Reactions
Thanks!

Look, I am sure that you have concerns about vaccinations and the potential for reactions. But 5 minutes perusal of that website suggests that much of its content is misleading. Either the author is being deliberately misleading for some reason of their own, or they simply don't understand the material they are writing so strongly about. Either way it's a worry.

Some starting facts (I am happy to explain any of these in more detail, have done so on other posts in this forum):

1. The fact that some kids who are vaccinated catch the disease, or even that more kids who are vaccinated catch the disease, doesn't mean that a vaccinated kid is more likely to catch, or to spread the disease. Unvaccinated kids are vastly over-represented in those who catch (suffer complications of, die from, and spread) the diseases. This "reason" is often quoted in support of not-vaccinating, but actually all it means is that many more kids are vaccinated than not. It is not a reason not to vaccinate.

Look at it this way: if 2.5% of kids (unvaccinated) are the source of 30% of the disease instances (these are figures I saw recently, forget where, about a current measles outbreak in the US), then it's obvious that an unvaccinated kid is much much more at risk of the disease and the consequences of catching it than a vaccinated kid. Still, you can say that "most of the sick kids were vaccinated", but that doesn't change the fact that the unvaccinated kids were more at risk. It's just maths, there is no different way to interpret the data correctly.

If you choose to not vaccinate your child you are putting them at a much higher risk of catching the disease, and, indeed, of dying from it. That's the simple fact.

2. On homeopathy, I understand that the London Faculty of Homeopathy, representing the medically qualified homeopaths of the UK, advises parents to vaccinate. Homepathy has its uses. Being a substitute for vaccination is not one of them. Enough said.

3. On kids being diagnosed with autism, dying of SIDS, etc, after vaccinations. Now, nobody disputes that SIDS is a tragedy. Autism is certainly a difficult situation for a family to deal with. But there is no statistical link between these things and vaccinations. Researchers have been looking for it, and it isn't there. The fact is that, for example, with kids having vaccinations at birth, 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months, ie right through the most dangerous time for SIDS, some babies are going to die of SIDS the day they had their shots. That is a statistical certainty. I am not trying, in any way, to understate the level of tragedy for those families. I too lie awake at night wondering whether my daughter will still be alive in the morning. But I know that if she died after having her vaccinations that would be chance and nothing more. Not the fault of the vaccinations.

Again: it comes down to understanding the maths. The author of the website you link does not appear to understand it, or is deliberately misleading people as to what it means. Either way, it's not a source of information to trust, when such obvious errors as these are appearing so frequently.

Please try to make sure that a source of information is actually accurate before recommending it to others to read.

[Glamourcide]

So, if you have the vaccine, and it works for you, you are protected against a certain % of cervical cancers. If this is proven, i think this is better than no protection.

I suppose this is pretty much the heart of the matter for me - it's not protecting women against 100% of cervical cancers, only the ones caused by that particular strain of HPV. But the way the media's carrying on, you'd think this one little needle was the be-all and end-all as far as cancer cures are concerned, which obviously is untrue. FWIW, I vaccinate my kids according to the schedule, because the schedule is protecting against contagious and infectious diseases that can kill or severely disable a child. So the Gardasil vaccine is something I would prefer to do more research on in order to decide whether or not to get it done, because it's not really a 'life-or-death' matter, kwim? At least I have a good decade or so before my girls are eligible for the vaccine so I hope by then that there is much more information and research into this particular vaccine available.

You are right though about people not being smart 100% of the time about the choices they make, and it probably came off like I was being quite arrogant about it Which wasn't intended! I just want my girls to know that this vaccine is only going to prevent a certain percentage of cervical cancers, not all of them, and that while they're protected from one strain of HPV as a result of the vaccine, it doesn't mean they're protected against any other sexually transmitted disease or infection (some of which can be really nasty and cause infertility etc), so if they're going to have the vaccine, it's not really protecting them against much of anything, kwim? They still have to be sensible and careful about their choices.

[Pretty Butterfly]

There is not a chance in hell that my daughter will get a vaccine that been linked with 32 deaths. No way. I dont find that safer than not getting the vaccine.

Just the act of putting on a seat belt wont kill you. But getting this jab into your child could kill them. Having a crash without a belt practically ensures you will be harmed. Not getting this vac does not ensure you will get cancer.

The small risk of actually getting the type of strain the vac is for, weighed up against the damage it can do just doesn't sit well with me at all.

There definatly isn't a concensus on the safety of vaccinations. Actually just the opposite. For all the reasearch done on how wonderful they are, there is more and more research on how damaging they can be, and every parent needs to work out which risk they want to take with their own child. Vaccinations have never claimed to be safe, and the full list of side effects and complications is a very very long one.

[sas85]

32 deaths possibly linked compared to how many people actually vaccinated - the amount of girls in America who have received this must be astronomical - I would be more interested in the actual percentage.

I understand your reasoning PB because we all have that fear, but it comes with every medication not just vaccinations. Ie- If Dr prescribes my daughter antibiotics because of an ear infection I know there is a much higher risk of her having a lethal allergic reaction to it then to most of the immunisations - but compared to the risk of leaving the infection it's a risk I would take - I think most of us who have immunized our children use the same reasoning, other than the social responsibility - we weigh up the risk of a serious side effect compared to the risk of the disease it's immunized against. Plus some of that depends on your background. Ie- I went to school with two kids who were both deaf and one retarded as a result of measles meningitis. I think though even those of us who do choose to immunize on this reasoning still have the what if fear though.

When it comes to this vaccine though being protection against a predominantly Sexually transmitted strain of HPB, I will raise my daughter with the same religious beliefs I was raised with, if she chooses not to follow them (we do not baptize babies, they make their own choice) than she can choose to have this vaccine - but it's not really in teh same ball park to me as whooping cough or measles, think I follow your reasoning there a bit glamourcide.

(As for seatbelts - 10 years ago my 16 year old friend had her spleen, pancreas, and duodenum ruptured BECAUSE of a seat belt injury in a car accident - but they save more injuries and lives than problems they cause - Tenar makes a valid point.