Ralph Moss on Gardasil

[Guest guest]

(Cancer Decisions News Staff)

 

Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #278 03/04/07

 

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NEW REPORT ON GARDASIL VACCINE

 

Until recently, most people had never heard of the human papillomavirus

(HPV). But in June, 2006, when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

announced that it had granted approval to a new vaccine called Gardasil,

public awareness of HPV began to grow. Gardasil, manufactured by the

drug company Merck, is a vaccine that protects against four specific

strains of the human papillomavirus, two of which are associated with

genital warts and the other two with the development of cervical cancer.

 

Once Gardasil was approved, Merck began an intense media campaign to

raise public awareness - and public fear - of HPV. The campaign was

cleverly targeted at the parents - but particularly the mothers - of

young girls, with the aim of igniting acute concern about cervical

cancer. Mothers who felt that their daughters were at risk of a

potentially deadly viral infection would rush to get their daughters

vaccinated with Gardasil, and would pressure their elected

representatives to include Gardasil in the panel of vaccinations that

are required for school entry.

 

Fear is a powerful incentive, as Margaret McGlynn, Merck's president for

vaccines, clearly understands: " Each and every day that a female delays

getting the vaccine there is a chance she is exposed to human

papillomavirus, " she said, in an interview with the New York Times.

Merck's campaign was highly successful. On February 7th, Rick Perry, the

Republican governor of Texas, signed an executive order making

vaccination with Gardasil mandatory for all 11- and 12-year old girls

entering the Texas public school system from this coming September

onwards.

 

If HPV were a clear threat to public health, if there were no other

means of preventing cervical cancer, and the lives of tens of thousands

of our youngsters were at imminent risk of a virulent contagion, rushing

to vaccinate as many children as possible might make sense. But we are

not talking here about a rampant contagion which is cutting short the

lives of children, and for which there is no other defense except

vaccination. Neither are we talking about a vaccine that is tried and

trusted: Gardasil has only just been approved, and the maximum follow-up

time so far is just 4 years. We simply have no idea what the safety

profile and adverse reaction rate will be when the vaccine is given to

vast numbers of young people over a protracted period.

 

In short, there are enormous and troubling questions still surrounding

Gardasil, and until those questions are answered & ndash; by science, not

by public relations campaigns & ndash; then pushing to make the vaccine

mandatory is an affront to the principles of informed consent.

In the past few months I have received literally dozens of requests to

write about Gardasil and the controversies surrounding it. This week I

am pleased to announce the launch of a newly completed full-length

report on the subject -- On Guard: Gardasil. This report, another in our

expanding Current Topics series, can be purchased for $9.95 and

downloaded directly from our Web site by clicking or going to:

https://webssl.cancerdecisions.com/list/optin.php?form_id=24

 

I urge you to read this report. The issues it raises concern all of us,

not only those who are the parents of school age daughters. When

enforceable social policy measures are made with such extraordinary

haste in the absence of any clear and immediate threat to public health,

one has to ask for whose benefit have these measures been taken? Will

children really be the beneficiaries of this policy, as the public

relations experts have cast it -- or is it Merck which stands to reap

the rewards?

 

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for

informational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to

be a substitute for professional medical advice.

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