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HPV Vaccine Near-Useless: Diane Harper

October 30th, 2009 No comments

Diane Harper is THE leading researcher in the development of cervical cancer “vaccines”.  In a recent conference she had this to say, and I quote from this article <http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt>

Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15.

Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. Although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, participants said they came away convinced the vaccine should not be received.

I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all,” said Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the Population Research Institute.

So it boils down to risk assessment!

Dr. Harper began her remarks by explaining that 70 percent of all HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment within a year. Within two years, the number climbs to 90 percent. Of the remaining 10 percent of HPV infections, only half will develop into cervical cancer, which leaves little need for the vaccine.

She went on to surprise the audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is already so low that “even if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”

There will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, and even then, the decrease will be minimal.

Those are very strong words, Diane!

Apparently, conventional treatment and preventative measures are already cutting the cervical cancer rate by four percent a year. At this rate, in 60 years, there will be a 91.4 percent decline just with current treatment. Even if 70 percent of women get the shot and required boosters over the same time period, which is highly unlikely, Harper says Gardasil still could not claim to do as much as traditional care is already doing.

Dr. Harper, who also serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization, further undercut the case for mass vaccination by saying that “four out of five women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.”

Would that mean that an increase in hygenic practices and/or better diet would be better than an untested vaccine?  Also, even in developing countries, only those who live in first world conditions can afford the expensive vaccine… so what’s the point?

Dr Diane Harper 300x231 HPV Vaccine Near Useless: Diane Harper

Dr. Diane Harper

Ms. Robinson said she could not help but wonder, “If this is the case, then why vaccinate at all? But from the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought was occurring to them.”

However, at this point, Dr. Harper dropped an even bigger bombshell on the audience when she announced that, “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years.”

Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, studied only a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.

This is not the first time Dr. Harper revealed the fact that Merck never tested Gardasil for safety in young girls. During a 2007 interview with KPC News.com, she said giving the vaccine to girls as young as 11 years-old “is a great big public health experiment.”

At the time, which was at the height of Merck’s controversial drive to have the vaccine mandated in schools, Dr. Harper remained steadfastly opposed to the idea and said she had been trying for months to convince major television and print media about her concerns, “but no one will print it.”

“It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11 to 12 year old girls,” she said at the time. “There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue.”

When asked why she was speaking out, she said: “I want to be able to sleep with myself when I go to bed at night.”

Since the drug’s introduction in 2006, the public has been learning many of these facts the hard way. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse reactions include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.

Hmmm, in my very first blog article (http://qi-spot.com/2009/10/03/british-girl-dies-after-cervical-cancer-jab/) it was said that there were 32 deaths.  Now there are 44?


Dr. Harper also participated in the research on Glaxo-Smith-Kline’s version of the drug, Cervarix, currently in use in the UK but not yet approved here. Since the government began administering the vaccine to school-aged girls last year, more than 2,000 patients reported some kind of adverse reaction including nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, convulsions, seizures and hyperventilation. Several reported multiple reactions, with 4,602 suspected side-effects recorded in total. The most tragic case involved a 14 year-old girl who dropped dead in the corridor of her school an hour after receiving the vaccination.

The outspoken researcher also weighed in last month on a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that raised questions about the safety of the vaccine, saying bluntly: “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.”

Ms. Robinson said she respects Dr. Harper’s candor. “I think she’s a scientist, a researcher, and she’s genuine enough a scientist to be open about the risks. I respect that in her.”

However, she failed to make the case for Gardasil. “For me, it was hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.”

Again, nothing that we Chinese docs don’t already know – taking care of your own health is priority! Vaccines can work and I would recommend them if properly tested and not politically or profit motivated.

Dr. Harper’s photo from colleenhammond.com.

Source Article:

Brinkman, Susan.  “Gardasil Researcher Drops a Bombshell” The Bulletin.  25 October 2009.  Retrieved 31 October 2009. <http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt>

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British Girl Dies After Cervical Cancer Jab

October 3rd, 2009 No comments

Welcome to Qi Spot’s first ever post.  Interestingly it is not about Chinese medicine, so I am classifying this under “Western Medicine”.  Why have I chosen this for my icebreaker?  Well, this blog was actually born out of some discussions over HPV vaccines (I will not call them “cervical cancer” vaccines) and one exasperated colleague’s suggestion that I “write my crazy ideas down”.  So here we have it.

British Girl Dies After Cervical Cancer Vaccine Jab (from Philippine Daily Inquirer)

LONDON – British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline said Tuesday it was working with health authorities here investigating the death of a schoolgirl following a cervical cancer vaccination.

The 14-year-old died on Monday when the Cervarix vaccine was administered at her school in Coventry, central England, as part of a national vaccination to protect women against the disease.

Health authorities have isolated the batch of vaccine used in the school involved against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted virus which is the primary cause of cervical cancer.

“The incident happened shortly after the girl had received her HPV vaccine in the school,” said Dr. Caron Grainger, joint head of public health for the National Health Service (NHS) in Coventry and Coventry City Council.

Late Tuesday Grainger said test results revealed the teenager had a “serious underlying medical condition” and the vaccination was therefore “most unlikely” to have caused her death.

“The preliminary post-mortem results have revealed a serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death,” she said.

“We are awaiting further test results which will take some time. However, indications are that it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death.”

The Department of Health said the vaccination program would continue as planned, stressing that more than 1.4 million doses had been given out in Britain and the vaccine had a “strong safety record”.

“The quarantining of this batch is a purely precautionary measure,” a spokesperson said, adding: “The HPV vaccination program can continue as planned — there is no reason for the campaign to be suspended or interrupted.”

In a statement GSK, which produces Cervarix, said it was working with health authorities “to better understand this case, as at this stage the exact cause of this tragic death is unknown.”

It added: “To date the vast majority of suspected adverse reactions (to Cervarix) have related either to the signs and symptoms of recognized side effects listed in the product information or were due to the injection process and not the vaccine itself.”

Awareness of cervical cancer was boosted earlier this year by the death from the disease of a reality television star, Jade Goody, who garnered publicity notably for the need for women to have regular cervical smear tests.

Natalie Morton died a few hours after being injected with a dose of Cevarix.  Strictly speaking, Cevarix and Gardasil are not vaccines for cancer, but for strains of HPV that are supposed to cause cervical cancer.  A recent Journal of the American Medical Association article with a stated objective of summarizing reports from the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS) has led the authors to the following findings:

1) There were 12,424 reports of Adverse Effects.

2) Of these, 772 were considered serious.

The reporting rates per 100 000 qHPV doses distributed were 8.2 for syncope; 7.5 for local site reactions; 6.8 for dizziness; 5.0 for nausea; 4.1 for headache; 3.1 for hypersensitivity reactions; 2.6 for urticaria; 0.2 for venous thromboembolic events, autoimmune disorders, and Guillain-Barré syndrome; 0.1 for anaphylaxis and death; 0.04 for transverse myelitis and pancreatitis; and 0.009 for motor neuron disease. Disproportional reporting of syncope and venous thromboembolic events was noted with data mining methods.

Note the word “disproportional”.  Keep in mind that this is a PASSIVE data system, meaning it doesn’t actively seek out side effect reports, but it sits there waiting for doctors to report them.  I am trying to imagine how many more cases out there are unreported.

and 3) There were 32 deaths.

Okay, 32 deaths out of millions of doses given… that’s not very large.  However, what comes to mind is that I have a daughter of my own.  How would I feel if that daughter of mine were one of that 32?  One of the 772 with “serious” side effects?

Of course, I could look at the other side of the fence and think, what if my daughter gets exposed to HPV?  Develops pre-cancerous lesions?

How to balance the two?

There are two factors that make me lean towards avoiding this vaccine for now.

First is the fact that this vaccine is still relatively new.  Thus, it’s long term effects are still in question.  People now do not recall the Polio Vaccine snafu that happened in the 1950s, when it became apparent that Salk’s polio vaccine actually CAUSED more cases of polio.

Second is the fact that the incidence of cervical cancer is actually lowering.  Instead, we have a rise in detection of carcinoma-in-situ (only seen cellularly).  Why? Pap smears, that’s why!  With regular screening, we can find pre-cancerous lesions, treat early, and prevent cancer.  With diseases like Hepatitis B, we don’t have that luxury.

Methinks I will wait ten years before pronouncing HPV vaccines as safe and reliable.

In the meantime, let’s also look at the applicable Chinese Medicine principles here.  Behaviors influence disease.  In the case of HPV, one is most at risk by having promiscuous sex with several partners.  (Well that was redundant… promiscuous sex with several partners…)  Logic dictates that proper behavior not only protects against HPV but other sexually transmitted infections as well.

Final seemingly-unrelated-thought: I also find it amusing that if a person with an underlying medical problem dies and is found to have been infected with H1N1, authorities are quick to assume that H1N1 caused the death by complicating the underlying problem.  Yet, when a person with an underlying medical problem is jabbed with a vaccine and dies, the same authorities are quick to rule out the vaccine as a cause of death because of the presence of the underlying problem.  As my good friend Garrick would say, “Huh?”

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