Gardasil Vaccination for Teen Girls - Politics vs. Evidence Based Medicine.
For parents who buy into the hype of the drug companies (Merck) and school administrators who are pushing the drug Gardasil really need to stop and take the responsibility upon themselves to do what is in the best interest of their children. Whatever the reason behind the parents consenting of the HPV vaccine, there are some relatively significant and dangerous side effects that they nor the child is aware, and the overall benefits of this injection may fall well short of their original expectations.
Just to put the massive but deceptive marketing of Gardasil into perspective, an inoculated child may be protected from 4 (70% of cancer causing) out of the possible 200 strains of the virus for a yet to be determined amount of time (4 years?) from a type of cancer which make up about 0.007 % of new cancer cases and 0.006 % of cancer deaths that occur annually in the U.S. In return for these modest benefits of Gardasil in 2007, there have been (1) 5 deaths, (2) 31 life-threatening adverse events, (3) 1,385 required visits to the emergency room with (4) 451 of the girls not having recovered as of July 2007 , (5) with 51 of the girls resulting with a disability(source). To boot, a new analysis has provided statistically significant evidence for a previously denied association between Gardasil and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (OOPS! Permanent disability. There is no known cure!!!) when co-administered with other vaccines. What else don’t we know!? Convince me that any other non-sex, agenda driven pharmaceutical would get such a pass from the media or pharmaceutical watch dog organizations. Not that Gardasil is a bad drug onto itself (for married couples), but the means of it’s deceptive marketing nuances and dirty secret side effects marketed towards young teens is despicable.
In Canada, the Bishops are fighting the Ontario Liberal Government which has mandated that the vaccine be administered in all catholic schools. Their resolution proposes that the school board will not support the administration of the vaccine nor will it be permitted to be administered on the property.
Watch the Merck commercial - political or evidence based medicine?
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As a nurse–I think vaccines are generally a very good idea–but not this vaccine. What are we telling our girls–your going to have sex with many partners so as your parent we are going to give you a vaccine against HPV? Statistics find outlier cases and then “blow” them out of proportion to reality–especially when they can make a “mint” on injecting them into kids.
There can be real consequences and yes Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a real possibility–very few cases but if your one of the few cases–the small statistical risk–is it worth the smal statistical risk of HPV?
Comment by tara — September 17, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
Thank you for posting this.
I’ll be linking to you over the next couple of days regarding this issue.
Comment by maria — September 17, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
Guillian barre can occur after a lot of different vaccines, ex. flu.
On the other hand, we used to see cancer of the cervix in promiscuous women at age 30 and now we see abnormal pre cancerous paps on 15 year olds and cancer at age 19…it’s the promiscuity.
The main problem for Christian girls is that they can catch it from their husbands, and get it at age 30. And don’t forget: Date rape occurs. That is why Focus on the Family has a “think about it” not a “no” on their site.
Luckily I have boys and don’t have to worry about it, but I worked with a population that needed it…
Comment by tioedong — September 18, 2007 @ 4:39 am
I’m conflicted about this whole topic. On the one hand, I’m a big supporter of vaccines - especially ones that help reduce the risk of getting cancer. Further, I don’t mind a vaccine that attacks a problem in pieces. I wouldn’t want them to wait to roll out this vaccine just b/c it “only” protects against the strains that cause 70% of cervical cancers. That’s a huge percentage. I also don’t have a problem w/ parents deciding to vaccinate their daughters. I’ve taught my children that sex should be reserved for the sanctity of marriage, but what can I do about the people they marry? Quite a large percentage of the population is infected w/ HPV and anything that stems future spread by vaccinating people before they get it is a good thing. I certainly don’t think the risk of cervical cancer is stopping anyone from having sex or that being vaccinated will lead anyone to have sex who was previously refraining from sex b/c of STDs. The people who will have sex before marriage will do it with or w/out the vaccine, and the spread of disease should always be a concern.
Having said that, I do have a problem with the extremely in your face marketing of this vaccine and the seeming race to mandate this for all young girls. There are still way too many risks and the marketing and legislative/school district actions seem to completely ignore this. B/c its “sex-related” that enables the drug company to push the vaccine w/ political support, but I drug companies do this with most of their new drugs to recoup the massive costs of bringing the drug to market. In fact, that’s the reason many promising cancer drugs never make it very far in drug companies. There’s no way to market it to a wide enough demographic to ever recoup the costs. Anyway - just my 2 cents on this.
Comment by Anon — September 18, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Actually GBS (Guillane Barre Syndrome) is NOT incurable. If it’s caught in time by a sharp neurologist and a regimine of IG is administered it can be completely “cured” with no repeats. Only 10% of the cases are “recurring, another 10% of cases have one relapse. The rest 80% or so is a one-time thing: if it doesn’t kill you, you recover.
Still since no one knows how it’s triggered, anything that seems like a cause should be carefully studied and not fooled around with. GBS can kill a perfectly healthy person in about 2 weeks from the first onset of symptoms (tiredness, tingling sensation in the fingers and toes - like a mild case of frost bite, difficulty walking or sudden weakness in limbs). Marines have been known to develop GBS after taking their antrax vaccines. Other people come down with it after a bout with flu or some other bug.
Comment by Joe — September 23, 2007 @ 7:56 am