After dozens of deaths and thousands of adverse reactions, it’s time to rethink the “safety” of Merck’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
Judicial Watch recently obtained documents detailing how, of the 200 claims that have been filed with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), $5,877,710 has been paid to 49 victims whose claims have been adjudicated so far.
Of the more than 100 types of HPV, Merck claims Gardasil can protect patients from four kinds that typically cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Merck’s Gardasil website starts with the parental guilt —
“As a parent, you know that nothing is more important than the safety of your child and protecting him or her from illness or injury”
and follows it up with some scary sounding statistics backed by the CDC —
“There are about 30 to 40 types of HPV that can affect the genital area. And, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are about 6 million new cases of genital HPV infections* in the United States each year.”
Wow, 6 million? That’s a big number. Sounds like bad odds, doesn’t it?
The statistics that Merck fails to include are the facts that, by the time we are 30 years old, nearly everyone who is sexually active will have been exposed to at least one HPV strain, and 90 percent of those cases clear up on their own without any symptoms in two years or less.
So while Merck is scaring parents into thinking they are bad if they don’t protect their eleven-year-olds from sexually transmitted diseases that can cause cancer (even though hopefully most eleven-year-olds aren’t even sexually active in the first place), even the CDC’s own website admits that only 21,000 cases of cancer that HPV is estimated to cause a year are even supposedly preventable through HPV vaccines. These figures are, again, only estimates.
To put that into perspective, there were just over 60 million Americans in the 10-to-24 year age bracket in according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.
How about another number: 12,200. That, according to the National Cancer Institute, is the estimated number of women who will get cervical cancer in the U.S. in a year.
So 12,200 is a whole lot less than 6 or 60 million, but here’s another figure: 10,000. That’s nearly how many adverse reactions to Gardasil have been reported since the vaccine first hit the market in 2006 — meaning there’s no way to really know how many boys and girls and men and women have suffered as a result of Gardasil. Oh yeah, they’re pushing it on males to prevent genital warts, too.
That means nearly as many people have suffered horrible side effects from Gardasil as there are girls and women who contract cervical cancer in a year. Clearly the benefits are not outweighing the risks here, and those side effects are nothing short of terrifying.
“The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors,” commented Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
Throughout the organization’s now six-year investigation, Judicial Watch has uncovered numerous reports of people contracting the very genital warts and cancers the vaccine is supposed to prevent. Three such outbreaks of genital warts occurred after primary school children in Fiji were administered the Gardasil shot. Pregnant women have reported spontaneous abortions and miscarriages shortly after receiving an HPV shot. Other women and young girls have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome — a life-threatening condition where the body’s immune system attacks its nervous system, leading to total paralysis and potential death.
In 2008, documents Judicial Watch requested under the Freedom of Information Act revealed a parent’s worst nightmare:
- “15 months from the completion of the GARDASIL HPV vaccination, I had full blown cervical cancer. My oncologist would like to do a hysterectomy at this time, but [as I have] always wanted children, I have chosen to wait . . . I have two of the [strains] that the shot is suppose to prevent . . . I now have cervical cancer and I am left wondering what role the GARDASIL HPV vaccination played in the hasty onset.” (ID: 319836)
- “After receiving her second dose of GARDASIL … she could crawl but … needed to use crutches or a wheel chair … She experienced problems breathing and had ‘super migraines’ that never went away … She had swelling in her face, jaw and wrists. The patient was diagnosed with GUILLAIN-BARRE syndrome, myelin sheath degeneration and peripheral neuropathy. Patient was hospitalized twice … patient has not recovered from symptoms.” (ID: 318052)
- A 19-year-old girl with no medical history immediately experienced side effects after receiving the Gardasil vaccine. Within eleven days her symptoms included “Aggression, Arthralgia, Complex partial seizures, Confusional state, Convulsion, Crying, Dizziness, Epilepsy, Fatigue, Feeling abnormal, Grand mal convulsion, Immediate post-injection reaction, Irritability, Myalgia, Nausea, Pain, Postictal state, Somnolence, Syncope, Tremor, and Unresponsive to stimuli.” (ID: 320598)
- “Two weeks after the third dose, the patient developed a complication. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance but passed away during the transport from an unknown cause…Upon arrival in ER unresponsive, pupils fixed and dilated, no cardiac activity. Resuscitation unsuccessful and patient expired.” (ID: 314769)
In total that year there were 6,723 adverse effects; 1,061 were “serious” and 142 were considered “life threatening”. A total of 28 deaths were reported that year, more than two a month, bringing the total killed since Gardasil’s inception up to 47. And that was just a smattering of adverse reactions from a single year.
But statistics can easily separate us from the fact that these are real people really suffering. Listen to this girl’s testimony of her experience of becoming paralyzed after being scared into taking Gardasil:
Now imagine that’s your daughter, your girlfriend, your mother…you.
It should be noted that, due to the nature of trusting the system, adverse medical reactions are notoriously under reported.
To add insult to a multitude of horrible injuries, one of Merck’s research doctors has admitted that the vaccine really doesn’t protect anyone from much of anything. According to Steven Mosher’s Population Research Institute:
“Indeed, [Dr. Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the HPV vaccines] surprised her audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is so low that ‘if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the U.S.’”
Even if a woman does contract cervical cancer, it happens to be one of the most easily detected and treatable forms of cancer there is.
Here’s another figure: $1.63 billion. That’s billion with a ‘b’. That’s how much money Merck made off scaremongering for Gardasil just last year. One course of three required shots is $390.
Merck has also partnered with Bill Gates’ GAVI (formerly Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) Alliance. GAVI recently announced plans to immunize 30 million girls between the ages of nine and 13 in developing countries with Gardasil by 2020.
It should be noted that Dr. Julie Gerberding, former CDC director from 2002 to 2009, helped pave the way for Merck’s Gardasil vaccine with a 2004 report to Congress on preventing HPV. Why should it be noted? Because after she left the CDC in 2009, Dr. Gerberding walked right through the revolving door to take a job as President of Merck’s Vaccine Division.
Otherwise completely healthy people, including young children, are now irreparably damaged as a result of the HPV vaccine and profit-driven healthcare. Yet, somehow, the CDC still claims it’s “safe and effective” to get a Gardasil shot. Last time I consulted a dictionary, something that causes paralysis, cancer, warts, spontaneous abortions and death did not fall under the definition of “safe.”
