Gardasil - 18 Dead, Thousands Suffer Complications
Growing opposition and flat sales trigger gardasil manufacturer Merck stock sell-off
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
July 8, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The public interest group Judicial Watch recently obtained more than 8,000 reports, under the US Freedom of Information law, of adverse events in girls and young women after they were injected with the HPV vaccine gardasil.
The reports reveal everything from massive wart outbreaks to seizures, paralysis and death.
Ten deaths have been reported since September 2007, bringing the total to 18 since the vaccine was approved for use in 2006.
In this year there have been 140 reported "serious" complications, 27 of which were categorized as "life-threatening," as well as ten spontaneous abortions and six cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a very rare (1 in 100,000 in a healthy population) immune response to foreign antigens such as infectious agents or vaccines, that paralyzes the afflicted person.
"Given all the questions about gardasil, the best public health policy would be to reevaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women of Canada commented on the lack of proper testing before gardasil was pushed through the approval process and the consequences of its widespread use.
"The long-term consequences of gardasil are not known. The manufacturer admits this and agrees it does not know its effect on young girls' cancer risk, on their immunity system, on their reproductive system, or its genetic effects. In due course, we will know this, possibly in twenty or thirty years from now when these young girls, the innocent subjects of the gardasil experiment have become grown women and then report the consequences of their having taken the medication in their childhood on medical advice."
Cynthia Janak, a freelance journalist and researcher, reported to the American Life League that she found evidence in the FDA's documentation that they knew that HPV is not the actual cause of cervical cancer but that the actual cause is a "persistent HPV infection that may act as a tumor promoter in cancer induction."
Janak explains: "What we have here is proof that there is scientific evidence that has been published in the past 15 years that states that HPV infection does not bear a direct relationship to the forming of cervical cancer. It also tells us that HPV, if allowed to will be taken care of by our own body's natural processes. . ."most infections are short-lived and not associated with cervical cancer." With this being said, why do we need gardasil when our own body is more than capable of eradicating HPV? What we need is a government policy to assist women with the cost of getting follow-up tests when persistent HPV infection is present. This would make more sense and our government would save so much money on these types of programs instead of $360 each for the gardasil vaccination."
The Judicial Watch press release concluded that "It could well be that the vaccine may not do a thing to protect anyone from cervical cancer, regardless of the claims being made by Merck Pharmaceutical. What the vaccine is causing is death and immense suffering among those who have been vaccinated."
After CBS News ran a story about the reported side effects of gardasil, citing the 8,000 adverse event reports and giving details of a few serious complications - seizures, chronic pain, paralysis, and death from blood clots, the Wall Street Journal reported that Merck & Co.'s shares dropped 4.8% triggering a sell-off of the company's stock and a downgrade of their rating on the New York Stock Exchange.
