Gardasil’s Adverse Effects: The Institute of Medicine Report To Be Released Thursday

By Gary P Jackson

Stacy Drake wrote about the crony capitalism involved in Rick Perry's decision to mandate Texas school girls be injected with the highly questionable drug Gardasil. Perry's chief-of-staff lobbied for Merck, the drug's maker, and the CoS's mother-in-law, Dianne White-Delisi works with an organization that gets significant funding from Merck. Perry himself received campaign money from Merck.

That's bad enough, but now there are many concerns that Gardasil is not well tested, and at best, is ineffective, at worst, downright dangerous.

Diane Harper, a pioneering researcher in the field of HPV viruses calls what Perry and Gardasil wanted to do "a great big public health experiment":

Dr Diane M. Harper, a lead researcher in the development of the humanpapilloma virus vaccine, says giving the vaccine to 11 year old girls "is a great big public health experiment" The lead researcher who spent 20 years developing the vaccine forDr Diane Harper humanpapilloma virus says the HPV vaccine is not for younger girls as it has not been tested for effectiveness in younger girls, and administering the vaccine to girls as young as 9 may not even protect them all. And, in the worst-case scenario, instead of serving to reduce the numbers of cervical cancers within 25 years, such a vaccination crusade actually could cause the numbers to go up.

"There is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue".

"Giving it to 11 year olds is a great big public health experiment", said Diane M. Harper, who is a scientist, physician, professor and the director the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire.

Internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field, Harper has been studying HPV and a possible vaccine for several of the more than 100 strains of HPV for 20 years - most of her adult life.

All of her trials have been with subjects ages 15-25. In her own practice, Harper believes the ideal way of administering the new vaccine is to offer it to women ages 18 and up. At their first inoculation, they should be tested for the presence of HPV in their system.

If the test comes back negative, then schedule the follow-up series of the three-part shots. But if it comes back positive?

"Then we don't know squat, because medically we don't know how to respond to that" Harper said

Harper is an independent researcher whose vaccine work is funded through Dartmouth in part by both Merck & Co and GlaxoSmithKline, which means she is an employee of the university, not the drug companies. Mercks's vaccine, Gardasil, protects against four strains of HPV, two of which cause genital warts, Nos. 6 and 11. The other two, HPV 16 and 18, are cancer-causing viruses.

Not tested on young girls

The idea is to inoculate them before they become sexually active, since HPV can be spread through sexual intercourse. But that idea no matter how good the intentions behind it, is not the right thinking, Harper said. The zealousness to inoculate all these younger girls may very well backfire at the very time they need protection most, she said. "This vaccine should not be for 11 year old girls", she reiterated. "It's not been tested in little girls for efficacy. at 11, these girls don't get cervical cancer - they won't know for 25 years if they will get cervical cancer."

"Also the public needs to know that with vaccinated women and women who still get Pap smears (which test for abnormal cells that can lead to cancer), some of them will still get cervical cancer". The reason she said, is because the vaccine does not protect against all HPV viruses that cause cancer - it's only effective against two that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

For months, Harper said, she's been trying to convince major television and print media to listen to her and tell the facts about this vaccine. "But no one will print it", she said

Read more here.

The website Gardasil Side Effects announced the Institute of Medicine will release a report on Thursday afternoon that will include information on Gardasil and it's side effects. To find out more, and how you can participate in a question and answer session, click here.

All medicines have possible side effects, some severe, some mild. Even aspirin can kill you. That said, a quick look at some of the information on the Gardasil Side Effects website is enough to cause one great concern. Besides a report on "tainted debris" found in some lots of the vaccine, there are reports of serious side effects such as seizures and the development of other diseases, and their links to Gardasil injections.

Anyone with young daughters must take a look at this website and read the various articles. I can't stress this enough.

What's really maddening is, only now, are we finding out the dangers of Gardasil. Rick Perry had his little pay-for-play deal with Merck was going on in 2006!

Trying to usurp the legislative process, mandating school girls be injected with this questionable vaccine, through an executive order, Rick Perry showed Texans exactly what he thought of the Texas Constitution. Perry knew this deal would have never made it through the normal legislative process, so he tried to force it on Texans by executive fiat.

Thankfully, the Texas legislature overrode his executive order, possibly saving a whole lot of girls some serious health issues.

I'd love to say that Perry's heart was in the right place, even if his zeal was misplaced. I mean who DOESN'T want to wipe out cancer? Sadly, the more I read about the heavy lobbying done by Merck and the cash that changed hands, this seems to be nothing more than the typical Rick Perry crony capitalist, pay-for-play, way of doing business.

In 2010, while running for re-election, Perry was running ads with this image:

The sign should read "Rick Perry: 'Open for Business'"!