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

[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.

[Kate07]

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.

I haven't heard this before. do you have a reference i can check out?

thanks,

Kate

[BellyBelly]

Not on hand right now don't have much time to find them, but if you google HPV in children you can find stuff like this: Untreated (natural history of) HPV in children

[amy_o]

I was in the age group for the free shots and my GP just sort of went ahead and I didn't read up (stupid!!!) this was very early on when it first hit Australia just after the inventor was named Australian of the year (Much better to have your vaccine out there and on the market instead of being tested and developed safely.... but thats another argument...) After my first shot I ended up in the ED overnight with a horrible reaction. Breathing, balance the works. The only thing they could put it down to was the Gardisl. Obviously I didn't go back for shots 2 and 3 and my reaction had to be reported and blah blah. My point is that I have told all the mums with girls I know that safe sex education and talking about regular pap tests and well woman check is MUCH more useful in my mind than this.

[Janie]

I agree Claire! I think stressing the importance of regular pap tests is so important. I too have had HPV cells removed from my cervix (more than once, it turned into a saga), and I have always been vigilant with my pap smears. BTW, it is not recommended to have the vaccine if you have already had HPV, your specialist was right.

This vaccine is too iffy for me right now, and it worries me that girls who have it will think that they are exempt from cervical cancers and won't have regular (or any) pap smears.

[Arcadia]

Can I just ask also, why are women the only ones being targeting for this vaccine? If HPV is primarily a sexually transmitted disease, then presumable there are boys out there who play a role in transmitting it! Surely if mass vaccination against HPV is the goal, then boys should be targeted also (although I recognise this would double the cost of a 'free' vax program).

There was a great Four-corners episode on 'Catching Cancer' last week, where they looked at diseases that trigger cancer. Anyway, in it the creators of the HPV vax took it to Vanuatu because the population there have a very high rate of cervical cancer linked to the HPV virus (one in eight women are affected).

So...it seems the testing is happpening to human guinea pigs as we speak...

[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.

[Lady Zaidie]

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.

[Lady Zaidie]

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.”

[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.

[LimeSlice]

Can we stay on topic here please??
This is NOT a vaccination debate thread!
It is supposed to be a discussion on vaccination testing and targetting, not another debate about whether or not to vaccinate your kids