Did anyone see this article about Gardasil?

(Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing 1,637 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. Three deaths were related to the vaccine. One physician鈥檚 assistant reported that a female patient 鈥渄ied of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gardasil vaccine.鈥?Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting.

As of May 11, 2007, the 1,637 adverse vaccination reactions reported to the FDA via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) included 371 serious reactions. Of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to fetal abnormities.

Side effects published by Merck & Co. warn the public about potential pain, fever, nausea, dizziness and itching after receiving the vaccine. Indeed, 77% of the adverse reactions reported are typical side effects to vaccinations. But other more serious side effects reported include paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures.

鈥淭he FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors,鈥?stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. 鈥淎ny state or local government now beset by Merck鈥檚 lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports. It looks as if an unproven vaccine with dangerous side effects is being pushed as a miracle drug.鈥?br>
Judicial Watch filed its request on May 9, 2007, and received the adverse event reports from the FDA on May 15, 2007. Judicial Watch has posted the adverse event reports below.

(A recent study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also questioned the general effectiveness of Gardasil.)

http://judicialwatch.org/6299.shtml

They only tested this vaccine on, what, 2000 girls under the age of 16 (which is who it is aimed at)?

They didn't do enough testing in the first place.

I dont have to look up the numbers to know that they spent more on promoting the vaccine, than testing its safety and effectivness.

We don't even know if it will work... who's to say that another strain of HPV won't take over and start causing cancer? (i could argue the same about prevnar... but that is another topic, entirely)

Cervical cancer is very treatable and has a high survival rate... why risk the unknown with this vaccine?

And i don't see why the conservatives would, specifically, have a problem with this? Every child receives a Hep B vax at birth... wouldnt that be more of a concern?

I just read the article, and followed the links to the actual reports of adverse events to read some of them, too.

Case reports such as these should be taken with a grain of salt, unless examined in a broader, epidemiologic sense. There is a faulty line of logic that is known by the Latin phrase, "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc," which literally means, "After the fact, therefore because of the fact." Basically, it suggests that when one event (like the Gardasil vaccine) precedes another event (like a blood clot or death), the first event must have caused the second event. If only life were so simple! Unfortunately, I've treated a lot of patients for blood clots (one even died); not one of them had ever received the Gardasil vaccine, and several did not have a clear-cut cause for the clot. I imagine that if any of them had just gotten Gardasil, then the vaccine would have been blamed.

Remember how many people claimed they had gotten (and even received lawsuit payouts because of) diseases from their breast implants? In the end, it came out that the chances of developing those diseases was no greater for women who had gotten the implants than for those who hadn't. I give that example not to say that Gardasil did not cause the deaths cited in the report. I am only saying that it would be unwise to leap to that conclusion based on a handful of case reports out of millions of doses given.

WOW =have they taken it off the market yet ==they should

Much of this is biased information due to the fact that the JudicialWatch organization is a conservative one, and therefore by nature against a vaccine such as this. While there are some side effects, it is not to the extreme level being portrayed in this article.