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

[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.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I am a scientist and a pro-vaccinating mother.

There is no way that any child of mine will have this vaccination.

Here's why:
It protects against 2-3 of 75 viruses currently known to be HPV viruses.
It has a limited life-span.
There are serious underlying issues which have not been fully addressed. In the MMR debate, the initial data were looked at again and re-done to show that the initial report was false. Little data have been released from this vaccine. And not with the target age-group: the initial reaction data should be in, at least!
You still need smear tests with the vaccine (the majority of people don't realise this!).
You still can get cancer (again, coming as a shocker to many).
You're less likely to get HPV by having safe sex OR having fewer partners than you are by having the vaccine, meaning teenagers think they're invincible (again) when they're on the path of most destruction.

I've read both sides of the argument and looked at statistics WITHOUT reading the pro- or anti- blurb (both sides use the same data anyway). And I've decided no. It scares me how many girls think "one jab stops you from getting cancer" because it doesn't - even the makers of the vaccine say that. One jab does pretty much nothing. Use condoms and don't sleep around - that's far safer than a vaccine, no matter what!

[tenar]

I am a scientist and a pro-vaccinating mother.

Snap!

There is no way that any child of mine will have this vaccination.

I'm interested as to why, My understanding was that the vaccine protects against the strains that cause a high percentage of the cancers. Would you mind posting or PMing me the links, if they exist, to discussion of the underlying issues you refer to?

One jab does pretty much nothing. Use condoms and don't sleep around - that's far safer than a vaccine, no matter what!

I entirely agree with this. Though you don't have to sleep around to still be at risk: if your one partner has slept around him/herself then you are still in trouble. But you have a very important point here, and of course we always need more education, as well as having reasonable expectations for what teenagers will and won't do.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I don't have the studies here (on holiday!) but I'll happily send the bits and pieces I've read when I'm back home and can find them... I've not kept all the links etc but I can do some looking around again. But from what I understand, yes, these 2-3 strains cause more cancers than any other 2-3 strains of the virus. BUT not more than the other 70-odd strains put together. They do cause a fair whack, but it's less than half of the cervical cancers from HPV that are caused by these strains.

I just think it's giving people a false sense of immunity. And viruses mutate SO quickly that in a few years' time this will be a worthless vaccine. We need new cold and flu jabs each year (well I don't as I refuse to vaccinate for viruses, given that I'm low risk), why do we think HPV is different?

Every other vaccine I have given DS has a high level of data and knowledge with it. This is so unknown and, to my mind, ineffectual that I don't see the point in giving it.

[BellyBelly]

Vaccine Researcher: Gardasil ‘is a Great Big Public Health Experiment’ | ChattahBox News Blog

(ChattahBox)—Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, questioned the effectiveness of the vaccines to reduce cervical cancer and warned of safety issues administering the vaccine to children under the age of 15. She denounced vaccinating girls, as young as 11, as “a great big public health experiment,” which could cause dangerous side effects.

When Harper was asked why she was condemning a vaccine she helped create she responded: “I want to be able to sleep with myself when I go to bed at night.”

Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. She was there to presumably speak of the effectiveness of Gardasil and Cervarix, but instead questioned the policy of mass vaccinations of young girls.

She first noted that the evidence shows that the vaccine does little to reduce cervical cancer, beyond current preventative measures. She said, that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is already so low that “even if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”

Harper also noted that “four out of five women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.”

But more importantly, Harper warned that there have been no trials conducted by Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, to test the safety of vaccinating young girls. “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years,” said Harper. And she opposed mandated vaccinations for cercival cancer in schools, advocated by Merck.

“It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11 to 12 year old girls. There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue,” warned Harper.

“To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse reactions include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.”

Last month, Harper concluded, “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.”