Wading Through the HPV Vaccine Hype
February 7, 2007
10:27 a.m., MT

I imagine most readers are aware of the increasing attention being given Merck's HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine, brand name Gardasil, as many states are considering mandating that young girls receive the vaccines—the full vaccination is actually a series of three injections. I would guess that most also know that Texas king governor Rick Perry has signed an executive order requiring schoolgirls going into sixth grade to get the vaccine, starting in 2008. Perhaps hoping to avoid the stick part of the carrot-and-stick dance, Washington state is mulling offering the vaccines for free. I’m not going to pile on over all this idiocy, but I do have some observations on the subject. Before we get too far afield of Rick Perry, though, it’s worth noting that he apparently has ties to Merck and his re-election campaign received some money from them. And while Merck acknowledges that it’s funding the effort to mandate Gardasil, it won’t say how much it’s spending, either through lobbyists or the group Women in Government.

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the mandate push tries to draw analogies to other types of vaccines—to make the issue one of “public health”. But HPV, to my best knowledge, is not contagious in the sense that smallpox and measles are; it is transmitted via sexual activity. So that blows that justification out of the water. Hyperbole in support of Perry and the vaccine might lead some to forget that measures to reduce exposure to HPV, and to detect it before cervical cancer develops, already exist. As to the former, females can be circumspect about their sexual partners—both the number of them and their sexual history. (No value judgments of any sort intended in that statement.) Annual PAP smears can provide early detection of abnormal cell growth, which can be treated before it becomes fullbown cancer.

Granted, thinking about that treatment probably induces wincing and leg-crossing in females. But is the vaccine really as safe and effective as is being proclaimed? A press release by the National Vaccine Information Center, presumably the basis of a Washington Times report, suggests that the picture may not be very clear for younger girls—precisely the (nonvoting) population legislation is targeting. Excerpts from the press release [all emphasis mine]:

In an analysis of reports made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) since the CDC's July 2006 universal use recommendation for all young girls, NVIC found reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, joint pain and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. In a separate evaluation of costs for young girls being vaccinated in private pediatrician offices, NVIC discovered that parents living in the Washington, D.C. area will be paying between $500 and $900 to have their daughters receive three doses of GARDASIL.

"GARDASIL safety appears to have been studied in fewer than 2,000 girls aged 9 to 15 years [in] pre-licensure clinical trials and it is unclear how long they were followed up. VAERS is now receiving reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, arthritis and other neurological problems in young girls who have received the shot," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "At the same time, parents who take their daughters to private pediatricians are going to be shocked to find that they will be paying two to three times the widely publicized $360 cost for the three-dose series. ..."

Between July 2006 and January 2007, there have been 82 reports of adverse events filed with VAERS following receipt of GARDASIL by girls and boys ranging in age from 11 to 27 years. Reaction reports have come from 21 states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia. All but three of the reports were for adverse events which occurred within one week of vaccination and more than 60 percent occurred within 24 hours of vaccination.

"The most frequent serious health events after GARDASIL shots are neurological symptoms," said NVIC Health Policy Analyst Vicky Debold, RN, Ph.D. "These young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, slurred speech, fainting, involuntary contraction of limbs (seizures), muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet and joint pain. Some of the girls have lost consciousness during what appears to be seizures." ....

Merck also states that "The duration of immunity following a complete schedule of immunization with GARDASIL has not been established."

Two thousand girls is a very small sample size upon which to be basing such broad rules. And it seems to me that the preponderance of adverse affects to the vaccine being neurological gives some credence to the hypothesis that vaccines play a role in autism (original source was moved). Merck says that Gardasil has no thimerosal, which is the mercury-containing preservative commonly accused of causing problems.

I don’t give a shit about what a state might mandate, of course; I’ll follow my own path, as charted by the information I gather and my values. That said, I wonder how many individuals are hiding behind the calls for coerced vaccination. With a nontrivial portion of the USSA retaining some Puritanical notions regarding sex and sexual activity, it must be easier for them to point to a law and tell their daughters, “You must obey!” rather than talking to them about Gardasil and facing possible embarrassment if the young daughter chooses to get the vaccination on her own initiative. How many times has our freedom to choose been restricted because of such thinking, I wonder ... My daughter will probably be unaffected by any statist’s diktat, as she doesn’t serve time in a school. She could change her mind about that, though ... and I’m frankly not sure which prospect is more unsettling, should that happen: facing the nanny-ninnies and their increasingly forceful “opt-in” stance; or trying to explain to her how something that should be a personal and private decision became co-opted by the state.

Sunni

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