A look at Gardasil, the new "Vaccine against cervical cancer"
by Carol Boyce CCH, MCH, RSHom (NA) (Updated excerpt from Magnus Pharma and the Golden Goose first published in Similia, June 2007 Vol 19 No 1)
Gardasil fantasies
Merck shareholders, still stinging from the financial effects of the company’s Vioxx debacle, were granted a reprieve with the announcement of the company’s new HPV vaccine to “prevent” 70% of cervical-cancer deaths. Fast-tracked by the FDA and hailed as the biggest public-health breakthrough in years, this genetically engineered vaccine had 1,637 adverse reaction reports filed in its first year of use, to June 2007. These include instances of life-threatening Guillian–Barré syndrome, syncopal episodes and seizures, and three deaths. (1) As of June 2011, there have been a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil® vaccination, including 68 deaths. (2) (Editor’s note: At the last count there have been 102 deaths and over 22,000 notified side effects of the vaccine. However, as reported in the book Vaccine Epidemic, reviewed in this journal, only between 1-10 and up to 1-100 of side effects are reported or acknowledged.)
Merck admits that:
• length of conferred immunity is not yet known, but the estimate is three to five years;
• cervical lesions may be higher in vaccinated women already HPV positive; and
• since not all women will be protected (even ignoring the potential for mutation of the target viruses), every woman will still need regular cervical screening. (3)
Despite these admissions, twenty U.S. states moved forward with legislation for mandatory vaccination of children and college students (trials on males and older women are under way); The Lancet called for the European Union to lead by example and enforce vaccination of adolescents; Australia began a free national Gardasil program and the WHO recommended that developing countries get on board. Eighty six countries have so far approved use of the vaccine.
Given that cervical screening programs will still be required and have already proven both their effectiveness and their cost effectiveness — already cutting the rate of cervical cancer by 70% since screening programs began — the proposals for mass use of Gardasil have yet to be justified. The global mortality rate for this cancer is 250,000 per annum, 80% of which is in the developing world. The U.S. mortality rate is low (3,700 per annum) and was already falling rapidly before Gardasil became available. The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Merck was “desperate” for a “revenue stream” and that vaccination across the U.S. would make Gardasil an “automatic blockbuster”. (4) At US$360 a person for the initial course and boosters at US$120 every three to five years thereafter per person who is either sexually active or legally compelled to have it, the vaccine offered the possibility of solving Merck’s financial challenge in just one move.
In June 2006 Gardasil was licensed for use in females, age 9-26 years and in Oct 2009 for males age 9-26 years. In the U.S. alone, the first ten years of blanket coverage for Merck’s ultimate target population of 9-to 26-year-olds would cost more than US$85 billion, without reducing the cost of the current screening programs. Gardasil sales went off like a rocket with over $1.1 billion grossed within the first nine months of release, but adverse publicity about vaccine related deaths and the challenge of an expensive three dose vaccine has seen sales fall, and Merck share prices along with them. (5) Nonetheless, Gardasil is still Merck’s best seller and expected to pull in $1 billion a year.
Mandatory mass vaccination for a non-epidemic disease represents a disturbing departure from accepted medical practice. Since cervical cancer takes 15 to 20 years to develop, the vast majority of cervical cancers are detected via established screening programs, and cervical-cancer mortality rates are rapidly falling already. Therefore, the predicted reduction in death rate would not even begin to take effect for at least 20 years and would not be measurable for decades after that, if ever. Professor Diane Harper, who led two of the HPV vaccine trials, had serious misgivings about promotion of widespread vaccination, describing it as “a great big public-health experiment”. (6)
Consequences for the homeopath
In addition to the illogical reasoning based on limited short-term data, there is also a much more urgent issue for homeopaths to consider. If we look at HPV itself and where it might fit into a miasmatic construct, we see that the four HPV strains targeted by Gardasil are associated with condylomata, with cervical lesions, cancer in situ, and, ultimately, invasive cervical cancer in susceptible women. We know that for the vast majority of our cases of cervical dysplasia and condylomata we will require a remedy in the sycotic miasm. In sexually active women, rates of HPV infection are high, with an estimated 80% of women infected by the age of 50. The proposal, however, is to artificially expose, via a vaccine directly into the bloodstream, an entire population of children with a sexually transmitted, sycotically based infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (in the USA) has been at pains to explain that this is not a “live vaccine”, but homeopaths are aware that even when the bacteria, virus, or spirochete has long gone, its energetic imprint, if you like, can still wreak havoc in the susceptible system.
In this context, the mass vaccination program currently being planned in Europe, the U.S., Australia, and, via WHO, in the developing world, has the potential to set off a global miasmatic time bomb in the space of just a few years, increasing as each new cohort of children comes of age. We have no way to predict what this might bring, but it certainly brings a whole new meaning to “iatrogenic disease”.
The introduction of “virus-like” particles in genetically engineered yeast into the system is an unknown challenge yet to be met. The effect of the substrate, including the adjuvant amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulphate, has yet to be seen. Given the number of adverse effects already reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we might unfortunately look forward to a whole new type of vaccine-damaged cases.
The full impact of this unnecessary vaccine may be unappreciated for some time, except by homeopaths and other health activists. Gardasil already deserves a prominent place in the medical “Smoke and Mirrors” hall of fame.
Marketing at its finest
Merck mounted a vigorous marketing campaign for Gardasil, aimed at young women aged 11–26. Ingeniously marketed as a vaccine to “prevent cervical cancer” they used healthy, hip young women in the television advertising who told us they were “One less” — referring to the predicted reduction in mortality. If we scratch the surface of the proposed state legislation to make the vaccine mandatory, we find a group of legislators called Women in Government, pushing hard for the mandatory HPV vaccination of school children — and funded by Merck. (7)
The European Commission approved sale of the vaccine in Europe. In Paris, a rally of medical professionals and celebrities in the Spring of its release called for the compulsory vaccination of 11- and 12-year-olds. The rally was entirely funded by Sano Pasteur, Merck's European marketing arm. (4)
1. FDA adverse effect reports for HPV vaccine. http://www.judicialwatch.org/6299.shtml
2. Centers for Disease Control, Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/gardasil.html
3. Kaufman M. FDA approves vaccine that should prevent most cervical cancers. The Washington Post, 9 June 2006, pg A01
4. Carreyrou J. Moves to vaccinate girls for cervical cancer draw fire. The Wall Street Journal, 7 Feb 2007 pg D1
5. DuBois, S. What went wrong with Gardasil CNN Money, Sept 7 2010
6. Boseley S. Vaccination campaign funded by drug firm. The Guardian, 26 March 2007
7. Peterson L.A. Merck lobbies states to require vaccine. Concord Monitor online, 31 Jan 2007