There are many reasons to avoid rushing to get a vaccination that has yet to prove itself worthy…the so called “cervical cancer” vaccine has been written about more than most medical news lately, and for good reason. Merck marketed this vaccine as an anti cancer drug. They did so with the blessing of several medical groups/associations. And, as sometimes happens, no one really bothered to FACT CHECK the facts on the very disease this vaccine claims to protect girls against. I did. And I wasn’t at all shocked or surprised.

States were, and still are, considering MANDATING this vaccine based on hyped up fear tactics. Through the fact checking, I learned that VERY few women actually develop cervical cancer in the US; of the 15,000 or so who do, roughly 4000 will die this year. They don’t know for sure HOW many of these cancers have anything to do with HPV- the virus this vaccine claims to protect women from; there is NO way, medically, to prove the actual cause. Cervical cancer is cervical cancer; there is no special variety, or different form based on what causes it. HPV related cerivcal cancer is no more dangerous than cancers caused by other means.

Women who develop this cancer almost always have other risk factors. Those who will die this year will do so because they did not get annual pap smears; they have not taken care of themselves; they ignored warning signs of the cancer…and so on. By the time it is caught, for these 4000 women, it is too late. Had these women received the vaccine years ago, it does NOT guarantee they will not develop cervical cancer. It does guarantee this form of HPV won’t be spread to boys and men though.
There are over a hundred forms of HPV. The form this vaccine protects against it is spread through sexual contact. The virus is located ON the skin and in mucous membranes. It is not spread through body fluids and semen.

Merck has suspended it’s campaign to pressure state legislators to mandate the vaccine to young girls:

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Merck & Co. will stop lobbying state officials to require that girls receive the company’s Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine before they can attend school.

Merck made the decision after groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics said there wasn’t enough state funding to pay for the $360 vaccine or public acceptance, said Rick Haupt, director of medical affairs for Merck’s vaccine division, in a telephone interview today.

As more medical professionals are investigating the vaccine, some more facts are being found. I find it extremely disturbing that Merck didn’t promote this knowledge. They have to have KNOWN this. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Lawmakers looking to force preteen girls to take Gardasil, a new vaccine against a virus that causes cervical cancer, are targeting the wrong age group, cancer data shows.

Middle-school girls inoculated with the breakthrough vaccine will be no older than 18 when they pass Gardasil’s five-year window of proven effectiveness — more than a decade before the typical cancer patient contracts the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV).

With all the hype put out there, it wasn’t mentioned that booster shots would be necessary. How convienient of Merck to not make this well known.

Infectious disease specialists and cancer pathologists say the incubation period for HPV becoming cancer is 10 to 15 years — meaning the average cervical cancer patient, who is 47, contracted the virus in her 30s and would not be protected by Gardasil taken as a teen.

Really now. This isn’t uncommon knowledge among the medical community. What is going on here?

Merck & Co. is still studying the longevity of Gardasil, the lone HPV vaccine on the market, which won approval from the Food and Drug Administration in June. But that hadn’t impeded its lobbying efforts. Legislators in at least 20 states and cities, including Virginia and the District of Columbia, are considering HPV vaccinations for girls 11 to 13 as a requirement for school attendance. Texas already has done so.

“We are doing further tests and follow-up. But right now, we know it is effective for five years,” said Dr. Richard Haupt, executive director of medical affairs in Merck’s vaccine division.

So we have Merck admitting that they haven’t done any long term studies, obviously. They know how it works, and the side effects, for 5 years. Yet, they also KNOW the cancer can live in the body for upwards of 15 to 20 years before some genetic message tells it to come to life. And the vaccine cannot protect against a cancer that is already in the works.

Even when applying a longer 20-year incubation period, requiring Gardasil for sixth-grade girls, as nearly all the legislation does, would not prevent the overwhelming majority of cervical cancer cases in the U.S.

So why bother with this vaccine for girls at such young ages? This is why Merck has suspended it’s lobbying efforts with the states….they knew this information was coming out. Requiring school aged girls to get the series of shots does NOTHING to protect them from cervical cancer in the far off future…Merck has been dishonest at best with this claim. The vaccine DOES protect sexually active girls from catching the 3 or 4 varieties of HPV that cause genital warts and perhaps offers some protection from the potentially cancer causing infection…which, 99% of the time develops and goes away ON IT’S OWN without any treatment. In fact, most will never know they even have it.

Merck should have marketed this vaccine as a the HPV protection that is really is…and they should have made sure people KNEW that only a very few selected varieties of HPV will be inoculated against when getting this vaccine.

Far be it for me to say, but with the known side effects being reported so far, from doctors who have given the shots to young girls, I question it’s worth. Reports of seizures, blindness, episodes of passing out, tremors, memory problems, vision loss-are coming in at an alarming rate. Are these true side effects of the vaccine, or just the bad luck of coincidence for the young ladies? We don’t know, yet. It takes many years of data collection and analysis to come up with an honest, medically sound answer.

One thing we do know: Condoms prevent the spread of ALL forms of HPV. Period. As well as other viral infections and disease. They’re much cheaper and don’t cause the serious side effects drugs cause. Why are little girls being mandated to get vaccinations that cause them harm, that do not guarantee freedom from the very disease the vaccine is said to protect against when we could mandate condom use for boys? Don’t answer that because I know it’s a stupid question. But for the love of GAWD people…do we see a problem here?