Thursday, February 23, 2012
Repeal HPV vaccine mandate
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Virginia should repeal the law that mandates vaccinating 11-year-old girls for the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Vaccine manufacturers are in business to make money. Recall the pandemic scare when they got the government to buy their swine flu vaccine. It was a false alarm, and the government ended up destroying millions of doses of paid-for vaccines. Now it's HPV, and they have invested many millions in lobbying doctors and state governments to try to make inoculations mandatory. Virginia complied and is now considering a repeal.
Merck recommends all girls from 9 to 26 receive the shots. From 2010 U.S. census figures, that's about 36 million girls. Three $120 shots are required. This would earn Merck approximately $13 billion. (For Virginia's 11-year-olds it would be only about $187 million.)
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 6million women contract HPV annually, but fewer than 3,900 die from it. That's about 1percent of the U.S. cancer deaths.
There are more than 100 strains of HPV, 15 of them precancerous. Merck says that Gardasil prevents infection by two major strains, which it claims makes it 70 percent effective in preventing cervical cancer.
Dr. Diane Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group, University of Missouri-Kansas City, was a lead scientist on the Merck Gardasil project. She explains that Gardasil's action is to prevent specific abnormalities in PAP screens.
It will not cure existing cases of cancer. And, since cervical cancer is most common in women in their late 40s, we don't know if Gardasil will really prevent any future cervical cancer.
She noted, "70percent of all HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment within a year. Within two years, the number climbs to 90 percent. Of the remaining 10percent ... only half will develop into cervical cancer, which leaves little need for the vaccine." And, if annual Pap screens had been used by those women, they could have detected any abnormalities and normally permitted them to be eliminated by conventional treatments.
Harper told interviewers that Gardasil tests indicate that it has an effective life of not much more than five years, but that, "health policy analyses show that there will be no reduction in cervical cancer unless the vaccine lasts at least 15 years." And, there have been no tests on children under the age of 15. Therefore, giving the vaccine to girls as young as 11 is doubly foolish, and a great big public health experiment. And, she acknowledged the "small but real" chance of serious side effects and death from these shots.
The CDC minimizes those risks, saying that as of Sept.15, 2011, only 8percent of the 20,096 adverse reports filed were serious. That means 1,608 were "serious" defined as "hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly or death." Cases reported included Guilliane-Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and 71deaths. And, all adverse events are not reported to the CDC.
The CDC cautions that those conditions occurred at rates not much more than happens in the general population, so the conditions may or may not be because of the vaccines, and because they occurred after receiving the shots could be merely coincidental.
In a July7, 2008, interview with CBS, Dr.Scott Ratner and his wife, who's also a physician, said, "My daughter went from a varsity lacrosse player at Choate to a chronically ill, steroid-dependent patient with autoimmune myofasciitis. I've had to ask myself why I let my eldest of three daughters get an unproven vaccine against a few strains of a nonlethal virus that can be dealt with in more effective ways."
Merck bears no liability. Responding to vaccine industry pressure, the 1986 National Vaccine Injury Compensation program removed industry responsibility. Injured persons must file claims on a federal government fund for compensation. The fund is financed by a 75-cent tax on each vaccination. Last year, the Supreme Court, with Justices Ruth Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor strongly dissenting, ruled that vaccine makers cannot be held liable for injuries even if their vaccines could have been made less toxic.
Harper strongly recommends that, rather than mandatory inoculations, there be "full disclosure in consent forms so that ... persons can weigh the benefits and risks of the HPV vaccination." She recommends women get a Pap test annually, which will permit elimination of abnormal conditions. "There are no side effects from Pap screens," she said.
