Hysterical, anti-vaccine zealot weighs in on the marketing and safety of Gardasil vaccine

She's also the writer of the Editorial in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, but what does she know?

In view of the current health care debate, this is an important issue. How much of our health care is driven by the motive of industry-profit, rather than by a real and significant contribution to our health?

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/7/795?home

The theory behind the vaccine is sound: If HPV infection can be prevented, cancer will not occur. But in practice the issue is more complex. First, there are more than 100 different types of HPV and at least 15 of them are oncogenic. The current vaccines target only 2 oncogenic strains: HPV-16 and HPV-18. Second, the relationship between infection at a young age and development of cancer 20 to 40 years later is not known. HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection, with an estimated 79% infection rate over a lifetime5-6 The virus does not appear to be very harmful because almost all HPV infections are cleared by the immune system.7-8 In a few women, infection persists and some women may develop precancerous cervical lesions and eventually cervical cancer. It is currently impossible to predict in which women this will occur and why. Likewise, it is impossible to predict exactly what effect vaccination of young girls and women will have on the incidence of cervical cancer 20 to 40 years from now. The true effect of the vaccine can be determined only through clinical trials and long-term follow-up.

The first HPV vaccine was licensed for use in the United States in June 2006,9 and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended routine vaccination of girls aged 11 to 12 years later that same month.10 However, the first phase 3 trials of the HPV vaccine with clinically relevant end points—cervical intraepithelial neoplasias grades 2 and 3 (CIN 2/3)—were not reported until May 2007.11 Previously only reduction in the prevalence of persistent infection and CIN from the 2 virus strains included in the vaccine had been reported. The results were promising, but serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine for protection against cervical cancer remained to be answered, and more long-term studies were called for.12 However, no longer-term results from such studies have been published since then.

So how should a parent, physician, politician, or anyone else decide whether it is a good thing to give young girls a vaccine that partly prevents infection caused by a sexually transmitted disease (HPV infection), an infection that in a few cases will cause cancer 20 to 40 years from now? Two articles in this issue of JAMA13-14 present important data that may influence, and probably already have influenced, such decisions about HPV vaccination.

SNIP


Whether a risk is worth taking depends not only on the absolute risk, but on the relationship between the potential risk and the potential benefit. If the potential benefits are substantial, most individuals would be willing to accept the risks. But the net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain. Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened.15 So rationally she should be willing to accept only a small risk of harmful effects from the vaccine.

When weighing evidence about risks and benefits, it is also appropriate to ask who takes the risk, and who gets the benefit. Patients and the public logically expect that only medical and scientific evidence is put on the balance. If other matters weigh in, such as profit for a company or financial or professional gains for physicians or groups of physicians, the balance is easily skewed. The balance will also tilt if the adverse events are not calculated correctly.

MORE AT THE LINK

" a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened."

So if you are screened at the right time, and if the test catches early cellular changes, then it is likely that you can be treated before cancer develops?

Surgical removal of abnormal tissue is the most common method of treating cervical dysplasia. Ninety percent of these procedures can be done in an outpatient setting. These procedures include:

* Cryocauterization -- Cryocauterization uses extreme cold to destroy abnormal cervical tissue. This is the simplest and safest procedure, and it usually destroys 99% of the abnormal tissue. Cryocauterization is frequently performed without anesthesia.

* Loop electrosurgical excision (LEEP) -- During a LEEP, a thin loop wire excises visible patches of abnormal cervical tissue. LEEP is performed with local anesthesia and has a 90% cure rate.

* Cervical conization -- During a cervical conization, a small cone-shaped sample of abnormal tissue is removed from the cervix. Cervical conization requires general anesthesia and has a 70 - 98% cure rate, depending on whether cancer cells have spread beyond the cervix.


treatment with cervical conization may adversely affect fertility.

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/cervical-dysplasia-000034.htm

And she works at a cancer hospital and had plenty of colleagues to discuss this with. Given the information which is available thus far, she didn't encourage her daughter to get the vaccine.

Yearly pap smears are the best way to screen and are still as necessary as they ever were. One danger of the Gardasil vaccine is that some women may have a false sense of security and not get their annual pap smear. The vaccine only protects against a couple of the 15 or more types that could cause cancer.

Merck lobbying the government to mandate Gardasil.

Who knew that there were Fascists here? :shrug:

when I posted a different article about this yesterday, some were throwing around words like "hysteria" and "anti-science idiocy."

Of course, now they have that handy "un-recommend" button instead.

At 0 now. Sorry.

"Vichy Dems". Most of the Democratic party look like "Vichy Dems".

And it was posted by you!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6341529&mesg_id=6341529

will eliminate cervical cancer. Even if the vaccine protected against all cancer-causing strains (instead of only 2 out of 15), it would not eliminate cervical cancer, and it doesn't account for all the cervical cancer deaths that occur annually. For example, many women who are now in their fifties were exposed to the (FDA-approved) drug DES in utero, and went on to develop cervical cancer. One of my friends died of this in her twenties, the other had to have a hysterectomy in her thirties.

A vaccine! How could anyone anywhere refuse to inoculate everyone they knew if there is a vaccine out there for something, anything.

Side effects? Or the vaccine doesn't exactly prevent the disease which is its sole reason for being? That is just pseudo science. Pseudo science I tell ya!

I mean, why would our beloved pharmaceuticals lie to us! And why would their fave agency, the FDA, with its revolving door of industry connections, fail to protect us if they go wrong?

(Is sarcasm necessary?)

An entire page of research shows that meningitis seems to pop up in vaccine recipients some TEN days after the shot.

So all the doctors and researchers who say "Nothing bad happens" are not usually aware how the negative side effect might occur days after the shot.

It was also interesting to read how one researcher in 1999 shot down Andrew Wakefield - by stating that "Dr Wakefield's theory, if correct, presupposes an alarming increase in autism, an increase that no one is seeing."

Well, there Mr Bubba Researcher, five years later that increase was duly noted. SO if that was the big bad PROOF that Wakefield was a horses' ass, what do you have now? Other than maligning the man the same way Carlo was maligned for telling the truth about brain tumors and cell phone (and their antennas), and then Pusztai was blacklisted for declaring GMO a hazard.

Good response, Truedelphi!

cancers there are. It's a no-brainer to me, I will not subject my daughter to this "safe" vaccine! How many hundreds killed or damaged now? Drug makers have immunity against lawsuits these days, which makes their safety record even more suspect.

Why not teach your daughters how to take care of themselves with proper nutrition and reg. checkups, and safe sex practices?

there's little "Health Care" but lots of "Industry"going on. Why are prescription medications even allowed to be advertised? Shouldn't it be up to the physician to suggest treatments, NOT the consumer? The whole system has the wrong motive at it's core (and no, I would never risk taking that vaccine).