JAMA Attacks Gardasil

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Merck & Company, the maker of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, does not accurately describe the vaccine and its side effects to the public.

Reportedly, Gardasil has caused young girls to faint and experience seizures and there have been a troubling number of deaths.

The JAMA piece, as well as a related safety study piece, about Gardasil raised issues concerning safety, efficacy, and marketing tactics, especially given that some experts have questioned the medication’s cervical cancer fighting abilities, said the Journal, which noted that the drug’s approval was for two, not all, strains of cancer-causing HPV.

Worse, noted the Journal, the vaccine was not broadly tested; only a “few hundred 11- and 12-year-old-girls” were involved in the test group, said the Journal. Some feel that this number was insufficient to declare the drug safe for that demographic.

Merck has also been long criticized for its ongoing fights to require HPV vaccination in a variety of states, something from which it finally eased in 2007, said the Journal. [...]

[T]he FDA documented 6,723 “adverse events” related to Gardasil in 2008, of which 1,061 were considered “serious,” and 142 considered “life threatening.” Since last June, 235 cases detailed permanent disability, with 29 new cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and 147 cases of “spontaneous abortions,” or miscarriages, when the vaccine was given to pregnant women, Judicial Watch said.

Judicial Watch also documented 62 cases of Gardasil recipients who developed warts after receiving the vaccine. In additional to genital warts, there were 21 reports of girls developing warts on other areas, including face, hands and feet, and, in one case, “all over her body.”

Despite these findings, the American health authorities who managed the safety review continue to assert the vaccine’s safety, claiming its benefits outweigh its risks, said the Journal, noting that JAMA described Merck’s marketing of the drug “pushy” and “disturbing,” it quoted.

Maybe it's just me but the side effects of being vaccinated seem comparable to what may happen if someone isn't vaccinated -- fainting, seizures, disability, spontaneous abortions, warts and death.

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