Search Results for: vaccine

Vaccine Safety: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Once Burned, Twice Shy—Why “Anti-Vaxxers” Are Really “Ex-Vaxxers”

Children’s Health Defense

May 2, 2019

In the 1920s, Edward Bernays, the so-called “father of public relations,” wrote several influential books outlining the principles of successful propaganda. In his book by that title, Bernays argued that “the mind of the people…is made up for it by…those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion” and know how to skillfully supply the public with “inherited prejudices” and “verbal formulas.”

Bernays’ comments come to mind in the current climate of hostility and intolerance being directed against individuals pejoratively dubbed by the vaccine lobby as “anti-vaxxers.” The dumbed-down propaganda being plastered across the mainstream media on an almost daily basis would have the public believe that anyone who questions any aspect of vaccination is ignorant, selfish or both. However, there is a glaring flaw with this logic. The incontrovertible fact—which the legislators, regulators, reporters and citizens who are participating in mass tarring and feathering are not honest enough to admit—is that many of the people classified as “anti-vaxxers” are actually “ex-vaxxers” whose dutiful adherence to current vaccine policies led to serious vaccine injury in themselves or a loved one.

Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming ex-vaxxers.

From compliance to injury

Vaccine coverage in the United States is high. In their first three years, over 99% of American children receive some vaccines. By the government’s indirect admission, however, vaccine-related adverse events are also common—with fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries ever getting reported.

Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming “ex-vaxxers.” In one tragic case, a parent who followed doctors’ orders lost her six-week-old infant girl 12 hours after the child received eight vaccines; medical experts’ conclusion that vaccination was the cause of death prompted a different valuation of risks and benefits with a subsequent child. There are many other such stories. Moreover, when individuals who suffer nonfatal vaccine injuries stick to the standard vaccination regimen, research shows that they often experience even more severe injuries the next time around.

In the U.S., vaccines have been liability-free since 1986—and evidence suggests that vaccine safety has deteriorated significantly as a result. The only current recourse for the vaccine-injured is to file a petition with the stingy and slow-moving National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Although the NVICP has paid out over $4 billion in taxpayer-funded compensation, it denies far more petitions than it awards. The family of the six-week-old described in the preceding paragraph eventually received NVICP compensation, but not before the program expended considerable effort to leave the cause of death unexplained. And, literally adding insult to injury, the maximum payout for any vaccine-related death is only $250,000.

The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, ‘Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable.’

Money talks

When people or their loved ones are vaccine-injured, many begin to unravel the unscrupulous world of pharmaceutical influence on our media, government agency leaders and lawmakers. Connecting the dots is a horrifying and enlightening experience, exposing facts to which the general public generally remains oblivious. These revelations weigh heavily when someone makes the decision to permanently change into an “ex-vaxxer.”

Why would the people’s elected representatives (and the officials they appoint) propagate smears, promote censorship and ignore the testimonials of the many families that have experienced devastating vaccine injuries?

Why would officialdom ignore the escalating fiscal implications of vaccine injuries, which are imposing a staggering financial burden on households and taxpayers?

Why do the media increasingly advocate for the elimination of informed consent and vaccine choice?

One of the inescapable answers has to do with the overt and covert influence of pharmaceutical industry funding on those who shape vaccine policy and public opinion.

At the government level, senior Senators openly admit that “drug companies have too much influence in Washington,” with big pharma spending more than any other industry on lobbying and campaign contributions. For example, the pharmaceutical industry poured an estimated $100 million into the 2016 elections, rewarding politicians on both sides of the aisle with its largesse. The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, “Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable” [emphasis added].

…studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”

Not content to just influence legislators, the pharmaceutical industry puts equally high value on print advertising directed at doctors—the all-important “gatekeepers” between drug companies and patients. In fact, studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”

Covering all bases, pharmaceutical companies also advertise vaccines and other drugs directly to U.S. consumers. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world (along with New Zealand) that permits this type of direct-to-consumer pandering. Drug company spending on television and print advertising in the U.S. rose to $5.2 billion in 2016—a 60% increase over 2012—with untold additional amounts spent on digital and social media advertising. Astoundingly, pharmaceutical companies even get a tax break for these marketing expenditures, a corporate deduction that costs taxpayers billions annually.

The media benefit handsomely from the steady infusion of pharma advertising dollars. Four networks (CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox) received two-thirds of the TV ad monies spent on top-selling drugs in 2015, with the Prevnar 13 vaccine representing the eighth most-advertised pharmaceutical product that year. Under these bought-media circumstances, it is somewhat astonishing that a few media outlets were willing to concede that drug money “coursing through the veins of Congress” directly contributed to the opioid crisis. So far, however, no reporters have been willing to connect similar dots between drug money and unsafe vaccines.

What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.

Pharmaceutical industry influence makes itself felt not just domestically but also globally, and this has led to a corresponding amping-up of rhetoric against “anti-vaxxers” around the world. In early 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) hyperbolically declared “reluctance or refusal to vaccinate” to be one of ten major “global health threats.” What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.

Back in 2009, sleight of hand by WHO scientists rebranded the swine flu from “a ‘perfectly ordinary flu’” into a “dangerous pandemic.” This maneuver successfully generated billions in profits for vaccine and anti-flu drug manufacturers; however, the vaccine in question (Pandemrix) caused cases of narcolepsy—many in young people—to surge all over Europe to nearly four times higher than prevaccine levels. In all likelihood, the parents of the narcolepsy-afflicted youth joined the ranks of “ex-vaxxers.” A researcher looking back on the Pandemrix fiasco recently stated:

“If vaccine regulators were serious about safety, the entire vaccine fleet would have been grounded following the Pandemrix narcolepsy disaster, to check for the same mechanism of failure in other vaccines. But nothing of that sort happened….”

Double standards

If consumers want to learn about the potential risks of widely used FDA-approved drugs, they can—with a little legwork—find detailed information on hundreds of drugs on the FDA’s website. For azithromycin, for example, the FDA links to studies showing that the antibiotic increases risks of cancer relapse and cardiovascular problems. A link for fentanyl clearly warns of “the potential for life-threatening harm from accidental exposure” and “deadly” risks to both children and adults. Although it can be an uphill battle to get drugs taken off the market, the ongoing pressure of lawsuits has succeeded in removing some egregious offenders such as Vioxx—and Merck, Vioxx’s manufacturer, has been forced to pay out billions in settlements.

In contrast, consumers who go to the FDA website for risk information about vaccines (classified as “biologics” rather than “drugs”) will search almost in vain, finding sparse information for only four vaccines. One of the four is Gardasil—also manufactured by Merck, and one of the most notoriously dangerous vaccines ever rushed onto the market. While the FDA cautiously states that “concerns have been raised about reports of deaths occurring in individuals after receiving Gardasil,” the agency asserts that “there was not a common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine.” The 2018 book, The HPV Vaccine on Trial, contradicts this benign narrative and describes how Gardasil has caused thousands of perfectly healthy young women and men to “suddenly lose energy, become wheelchair-bound, or even die” while Merck continues to enjoy “soaring revenues.”

For government and the media to dismiss these and other accounts of serious vaccine injuries as insignificant—while falsely labeling injured individuals and their advocates as irresponsible “anti-vaxxers”—is both shameful and insulting. After revealing how the mainstream narrative about Gardasil is riddled with “discrepancies and half-truths,” the authors of The HPV Vaccine on Trial issued a call for greater civility. Noting that marginalization and bullying of the vaccine-injured “destroys civil public discourse and discourages scientific inquiry,” they pointed out that “we urgently need both.”

Copyright © 2019 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

 From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Deciphering the Research on Vaccines to Make Health Care Decisions

New York Times Editorial On Vaccines: A Pseudoscience Mess!

(Note: My wife vetoed my initial headline: Failing New York Times Op-Ed Full of Fake Vaccine News.  She claims that my sense of humor does not translate to all.)

The lead New York Times (NYT) editorial today is titled, “Know The Enemy.” According to the NYT, the “enemy” is anyone who questions the safety and efficacy of any vaccine.

I guess that makes me the enemy. I thought I was a board-certified physician trying to read and decipher the research on vaccines to help guide my patients on how to make their best health care decisions.

The NYT states, “Leading global health threats typically are caused by the plagues and perils of low-income countries — but vaccine hesitancy is as American as can be.” Both parts of that sentence are correct.

In the early 20th Century, infection was the number one killer of Americans and it killed a high percentage of our youth. However, by the 1950’s infection rates for nearly every childhood vaccine- preventable illness (as well as other infectious illnesses like scarlet fever) had drastically declined—BEFORE vaccines were developed and mandated. In fact, for the major vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles, mumps, diphtheria, and pertussis, the death rate declined well over 90% BEFORE vaccines were mandated. How did that occur? The death rate from infectious diseases declined not by vaccination, but by public health measures. This includes providing clean water to our houses and safely removing waste products.

Did vaccines lower the death rate for their respective illnesses? We don’t know since the rates were already declining dramatically before the mass vaccination program began. To imply that vaccines were responsible for this dramatic decline in pediatric infectious deaths in the 20th Century is nothing more than FAKE NEWS!

One of the best indicators of the health of a country is the infant mortality rate. Researchers correlated the number of vaccines given to infants and the mortality rate for ages five and under. Guess who gave the most vaccines and guess who had the highest infant mortality rate? If you guessed the US, you win.

The NYT states, “On the internet, anti-vaccine propaganda has outpaced pro-vaccine public health information. The anti-vaxxers, as they are colloquially known, have hundreds of websites promoting their message, a roster of tech- and media-savvy influencers and an aggressive political arm that includes at least a dozen political action committees.”

Well, in this case, there is just me. And, I am not that tech-savvy.

I don’t write anti-vaccine propaganda. I write about the science behind vaccines. And, if you study the science behind vaccines, it is hard not to question the wisdom of injecting our young with too many toxic-laden vaccines.

“The C.D.C., the nation’s leading public health agency, has a website with accurate information, but no loud public voice,” writes the NYT. The CDC is a cesspool of corruption, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In fact, the CDC has a senior scientist who has assumed whistle-blower status claiming that published studies (by the CDC) looking at whether the MMR vaccine causes autism were fraudulent. The whistle-blower has stated, under oath, that senior CDC managers directed the whistle-blower and others to destroy and alter the data in order to hide the truth. The data, released by the whistle-blower, did show a strong correlation with the MMR vaccine and autism.

Why doesn’t the NYT write a lead op-ed demanding that the CDC whistle-blower testify in front of Congress about his allegations? To date, it has been over four years since the whistle-blower came forward. To date, he has not testified in front of Congress and the CDC has blocked his testimony in other settings. To date, the NYT has failed to write ONE article about this situation. Perhaps the CDC has no loud voice because it is too busy covering up the truth about vaccines. If there is nothing to hide, then why doesn’t the whistle-blower testify? Why has the CDC gagged him from speaking?

Further in the op-ed, the NYT writes, “The consequences of this disparity are substantial: a surge in outbreaks of measles, mumps, pertussis and other diseases; an increase in influenza deaths; and dismal rates of HPV vaccination, which doctors say could effectively wipe out cervical cancer if it were better utilized.”

Would declining vaccine rates increase the susceptibility for some of the vaccinated illnesses? Yes. For example, measles and chickenpox illnesses will increase if we stop vaccinating for these illnesses. But, children rarely die from measles and chickenpox in modern countries. These illnesses are often treated with supportive care and for the vast majority recovery from the illness is uneventful.

Cervical cancer deaths have rapidly fallen not from vaccines, but better medical care such as the Pap smear.  The HPV vaccine has never been shown to prevent cancer and probably will not in the future.  And, there are too many side effects from the HPV vaccine to recommend its use for a relatively uncommon cancer. Can measles and chickenpox cause serious effects including death? Yes. So can the vaccines.

The NYT mentions the pro-vaccine researchers are having “…to counter pseudoscience with fact” in order to prove vaccines are safe and effective.

Pseudoscience? There is no greater example of pseudoscience than saying it is safe to inject toxic items like mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde into any living being, much less a newborn infant.

Pseudoscience? How about the pseudoscience by not comparing a new vaccine with a placebo to show that it is safe. However, in today’s world, in regards to vaccines, pseudoscience rules.  The fact is that childhood vaccines have not been studied against a true placebo (except for one small HPV study which found much higher adverse effects in the HPV group compared to the placebo). Big Pharma studies the vaccines against other vaccines and other toxic agents which hide the true adverse effects of vaccines.

Pseudoscience? Where are the CDC studies comparing vaccinated versus unvaccinated? This simple study could put to rest the idea that vaccines cause too many problems. The CDC refuses to do a vaccinated versus unvaccinated study even though Congress has asked for this.

The NYT mentioned the California Disneyland measles outbreak twice. Here are the facts about the Disneyland measles outbreak. A total of 147 people were sickened with measles. No deaths were reported. Of those sickened with measles, 45% were unvaccinated. Of the remaining subjects, 18% were vaccinated and 38% had unknown vaccination status. Perhaps the NYT editorial board should re-watch the Brady Bunch episode where the Brady children become infected with measles. Marcia Brady stated, “If you have to get sick, sure can’t beat the measles.”

Continue reading…

From Dr. Brownstein, here.

Fake News on Vaccines

The One Way To Spot Vaccine Propaganda

By 

February 19, 2019

It’s that season again: Another outbreak of a benign childhood disease that only a couple of generations ago the vast majority of the US population contracted and recovered from, serendipitously occurring precisely at the time when legislators across the country are putting forward bills to strip parents of the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate their own children.

In this climate of interest-driven hysteria, it is important to be able to distinguish between reliable information on the issue and misinformation. Here is one quick way to tell the difference:

Take a look at these three recent articles on the “crisis” of parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Do you notice something they all have in common?

“Measles outbreak may spread to California from other states, doctors are warned”

“Measles outbreak fueled by anti-vaccination movement, infections disease expert says”

“Dangerous anti-vaccination myths ‘breeding’ on social media, report warns”

Leaving aside the frenzied headlines, what all three share is something common to the vast majority of mainstream articles about the vaccine controversy. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it is the obligatory recitation of some version of the “Wakefield catechism.” Here is one, from KTVQ:

“The mistaken belief in a connection can be traced back to 1998, when a doctor in the U.K. published a now discredited study claiming the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism. His research was found to be based on fraudulent data, the study was retracted, and the doctor lost his medical license.”

Nearly everything in this statement is false.

Dr. Wakefield’s study (he was actually one of 13 doctors on the paper) did not make the claim that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism, but stated: “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.”

Nor was the paper based on fraudulent research. Dr. Wakefield, along with Dr. John Walker-Smith, the paper’s senior co-author, were indeed “discredited” and stripped of their medical licenses. However, neither “fraud” nor “manipulating data” nor anything relating to the soundness of the research were among the charges laid against either one (you can look for yourself. It’s a searchable document).

Furthermore, in 2012, Dr. Walker-Smith won his appeal against the charges, in the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division. (Dr. Wakefield did not appeal the decisions against him, as his insurance would not cover the legal expenses.) In his ruling, Justice John Mitting wrote:

“…the panel’s overall conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct was flawed…[there was] inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion… The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.”

None of these facts will ever make it into a mainstream article about vaccines. Nor will the fact that concerns about autism being related to vaccines neither began nor ended with the 1998 Lancet paper. Studies both before that paper and after (including a study by the CDC, in which one of the scientists has accused the CDC of falsifying data so as to conceal a possible connection) have shown a possible link between vaccines (including the MMR vaccine) and autism.

Indeed, one of the US government’s own expert witnesses, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman has admitted that “…in a subset of children, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation did cause regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.”

So yes, it would be understandable to think that the near-unison recitation of these falsehoods about the lack of a vaccine-autism connection, and about the Wakefield study in particular, was the primary feature that these articles have in common – as indeed they do. But there’s something else.

I was a professional journalist for many years. And I’m pretty sure that if I had ever written a story about a controversial topic, but only interviewed people on one side of that controversy, I would have lost my job. If it had happened more than once, I would absolutely have lost my job – as should any other “journalist” who behaves similarly.

And yet, over and over again, in coverage throughout the mainstream media about vaccines, this is precisely what we see. Articles repeating the same assertions (rarely with any supporting evidence provided) that “vaccines are safe” and “vaccines do not cause autism”, and speaking with qualified spokespeople only on the pro-vaccine side of the issue. Typically, this spokesperson will be Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, and typically the article will not mention his financial conflicts of interest – another breach of basic journalistic standards (not to mention explicit policy at many publications) for which any journalist ought to be unceremoniously sacked.

Occasionally, as with the KTVQ piece above, a journalist will speak with an “anti-vaxxer” parent. Never one, though, who references any of the scientific literature on the topic, and absolutely never any actual scientists or doctors who have concerns about vaccine safety.

It’s not because they don’t exist. Here is Dr. Toni Bark, for instance, giving testimony at hearings recently held in Washington State about a proposed vaccine mandate there. Dr. Brian Hooker also gave testimony, as did attorney Robert Kennedy Jr. Indeed, there are many researchers and professionals who are critical of vaccines and who do not accept the mainstream mantras insisting that they are safe.

But you will never hear about any of these scientists and doctors from mainstream news outlets. Why not? Because what those outlets are engaged in is not journalism. It is something else.

The conversation around vaccines has been manipulated for a long time, largely by those who have an interest in making and selling vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars each year on advertising, and as such, exert a great deal of influence on publishers and broadcasters.  As genuine journalists, such as Sharyl Attkisson and Jeremy R. Hammond, have carefully documented, what the media tells us science says about vaccines, and what the science actually says, are two very different – and often contradictory – things.

Whatever your views on vaccines, the fact (don’t take my word for it, go and look for yourself) that only one side of the controversy is reported in the mainstream media ought to give you pause. If what the proponents of vaccines say about them is true, if they really are “safe and effective”, if adverse reactions really are so very rare, and if the science really is settled, then why can’t journalists report honestly about this? If those who have concerns about vaccine safety really are just kooks and frauds, then why are the people who cover the topic afraid to speak to them?

From LewRockwell.com, here.

Gardasil: The Dangerous HPV Vaccine

Manufactured Crisis — HPV, Hype and Horror

By 

Mercola.com

December 10, 2018

The HPV vaccine Gardasil was granted European license in February 2006,1 followed by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval that same year in June.2 Gardasil was controversial in the U.S. from the beginning, with vaccine safety activists questioning the quality of the clinical trials used to fast track the vaccine to licensure.3 Merck, which manufactures and distributes the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has worked with a global health group called PATH4 to get the vaccine approved worldwide.

Lauded as a silver bullet against cervical cancer, the vaccine has since wrought havoc on the lives of young girls across the world.

“Manufactured Crisis — HPV, Hype and Horror,” a film by The Alliance for Natural Health, delves into the all too often ignored dark side of this unnecessary vaccine, interviewing families whose lives have been forever altered after their young daughters suffered life-threatening or lethal side effects following Gardasil vaccination. Says Barbara Loe Fisher, president and cofounder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC):

“The tragic story of Gardasil vaccine is one that is playing out in real time in the homes of trusting parents, who thought they were doing the right thing to try to make their daughters ‘one less,’ and in the 21st century cyberspace forum of public opinion as well as on television.”

Gardasil, a Global Catastrophe Wrecking Lives Worldwide

Serious adverse reactions reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in relation to Gardasil include but are not limited to:5

According to the film, there have also been cases of 16-year-old girls developing ovarian dysfunction, meaning they’re going into menopause, which in turn means they will not be able to have children. Despite such serious effects, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and FDA allege the vast majority, or even all, of these tragic cases are unrelated to the vaccine, and that Gardasil is safe. In the film, Laurie Powell, a former pharmaceutical marketing executive says:

“I would come home feeling like I just wanted to take a shower, because I couldn’t believe the amount of spin and just utter deception that goes on behind the scenes, all funded by pharma. It’s not about patient well care, it’s about making money.”

Gardasil and Autoimmune Problems

Many of the more serious side effects of Gardasil vaccination are immune-based inflammatory neurodegenerative disorders, suggesting something is causing the immune system to overreact in a detrimental way, sometimes fatally.6,7 One of the leading theories revolves around the use of aluminum as an adjuvant.

Chris Exley, Ph.D., professor of bioinorganic chemistry and a leading expert on aluminum, notes that all the available evidence indicates aluminum is toxic to living systems. He, like many others, suspect it’s the aluminum adjuvant in vaccines that cause the majority of severe adverse reactions.

The filmmakers tested several samples of Cervarix (pulled from the U.S. market in 2016, ostensibly due to low demand8) and Gardasil at two separate laboratories to ascertain and compare their aluminum content.

Interestingly, Cervarix contained 2.6 times more aluminum than stated on the label. And, while the amount of aluminum found in Gardasil was within the range stated on the label, it was 2.5 times higher than the stated amount in Cervarix. In the end, both products were found to contain right around 1,000 parts per million of aluminum.

While government authorities claim this level of aluminum in vaccines is safe — based on estimated safe levels for ingestion — animal research reveals neurological and immune responses can be triggered. When injected, you bypass the filtering system of your gastrointestinal tract, allowing the aluminum access to vulnerable parts of your body far more easily than were you to ingest it.

The high immunogenicity of Gardasil was also addressed in my 2015 interview with Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., a research scientist at the University of British Columbia. In it, she explains that by triggering an exaggerated inflammatory immune response, vaccine adjuvants end up affecting brain function.

In collaboration with a team led by Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, a world expert in autoimmune diseases who heads the Zabludowicz Autoimmunity Research Centre at the Sheba Hospital in Israel, Tomljenovic has demonstrated how the HPV vaccine can cause brain autoimmune disorders.

Cochrane Researcher Highlights Problems With Most Recent Safety Review

The filmmakers interview a number of vaccine and medical experts and researchers, including Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, who helped found the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and later launched the Nordic Cochrane Centre. Cochrane publishes hundreds of scientific reviews each year, looking at what works and what doesn’t.

Earlier this year, Cochrane published a surprisingly favorable review9 of the HPV vaccine, concluding “There is high-certainty evidence that HPV vaccines protect against cervical precancer in adolescent girls and women who are vaccinated between 15 and 26 years of age,” and, ”The risk of serious adverse events is similar in HPV and control vaccines.”

Two months later, Gøtzsche, along with Cochrane-affiliated researchers Lars Jørgensen and Tom Jefferson, published a scathing critique10 of the review,11 pointing out methodological flaws and conflicts of interest. Shortly thereafter, Gøtzsche was expelled from the Cochrane governing board.12,13

According to Gøtzsche, the review “missed nearly half of the eligible trials,” and “was influenced by reporting bias and biased trial designs.” In the film, he notes that the reviewers simply accepted the conclusions of the studies — all of which were done by industry — and didn’t look at how the studies were actually conducted.

Importantly, all but one of the 26 trials included in the HPV vaccine review used active comparators, meaning aluminum-containing vaccines, which can significantly skew results by hiding neurological and other adverse effects.

Making matters worse, the reviewers incorrectly described these active comparators as “placebos.” By definition, a placebo is an inert substance, and an aluminum-containing vaccine is anything but inert. Results may also have been skewed by the exclusion of women who had a history of immunological or nervous system disorders.

According to Gøtzsche and his team,14 “These exclusion criteria lowered the external validity of the trials and suggest that the vaccine manufacturers were worried about harms caused by the adjuvants.” They also noted the review “incompletely assessed serious and systemic adverse events” and ignored “HPV vaccine-related safety signals.”

Conflicts of Interest May Have Tainted Cochrane’s 2018 HPV Vaccine Review

What’s more, not only were all 26 studies funded by industry, three of the four reviewers also had conflicts of interest. As noted by Gøtzsche:15

“The review’s first author currently leads EMA’s ‘post-marketing surveillance of HPV vaccination effects in non-Nordic member states of the European Union,’ which is funded by Sanofi-Pasteur-MSD that was the co-manufacturer of Gardasil.”

One of the clearest conflicts of interest involves Dr. Lauri Markowitz, one of the authors of the HPV vaccine review protocol,16 meaning the individuals who designed and determined the scope of the review. Markowitz’s history with the HPV vaccine include:

  • Currently being the HPV team lead for the division of viral diseases at the CDC17,18
  • Being part of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP) HPV working group in 2006, which recommended Gardasil for routine vaccination of girls 11 to 12 years old
  • Being the designated correspondent on ACIP’s HPV vaccination recommendation issued in March 200719

Considering the U.S. government’s financial interest in the sale of the HPV vaccine, this is about as clear a conflict of interest as you can get, yet Markowitz was allowed to be part of the team that designed the scope and parameters of the review.

Risk Benefit Analysis

In the film, Norma Erickson, president of Sanevax, Inc., an “international HPV vaccine information clearinghouse” in Troy, Montana, points out that while the cervical cancer rate in the U.S. is 12 per 100,000, by Merck’s own admission, Gardasil may cause 2,300 serious adverse events per 100,000.

Is it really reasonable to risk 2,300 serious adverse events — which includes sudden death — in the hopes of preventing 12 cases of cervical cancer out of 100,000?

Trial data from Merck also shows that Gardasil vaccinations may actually increase your risk of cervical cancer by 44.6 percent if you have been exposed to HPV strains 16 or 18 prior to vaccination.20 (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has made this document inaccessible, but we’ve saved a copy of it for posterity.)

Professor Marcos Mazzuka, a pediatrician specializing in vaccine injuries in Madrid, Spain, agrees that the HPV vaccine is not safe, and is not worth the risk, as side effects are not limited to rash or fever but are severe and long-lasting.

“We’re talking about more than 300 girls who have died, around the world,” he says. “We’re talking about 46,000 girls who have very, very serious side effects.”

Gardasil Is by Far the Most Dangerous Vaccine on the Market

The film also features Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., whose research reveals Gardasil is one of the most reactive vaccines on the market, producing far more adverse reactions than other vaccines given at the same age. For example, in her sampling, Gardasil had a death toll of 35, compared to just seven from other vaccines given to young girls. According to Seneff:

“There’s no way that the risk benefit ratio [for Gardasil] comes out in favor of benefit, particularly since they have not demonstrated that it actually protects against cervical cancer.”

Similarly, in its 2009 Gardasil versus Menactra risk report,21 NVIC compared the number and severity of adverse events for the two vaccines reported to VAERS through November 30, 2008.

Results show that death and serious health problems such as stroke, blood clots, cardiac arrest, seizures, fainting, lupus and challenge/rechallenge cases (i.e., a similar adverse reaction occurs after another dose of vaccine is given) were reported three to 30 times more frequently after Gardasil vaccination than after meningococcal (Menactra) vaccination.

In the film, Robert Verkerk, scientific and executive director of the Alliance for Natural Health International, points out that data obtained via freedom of information requests from the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MRHA) also reveal that the number of adverse event reports following Gardasil vaccination is several times higher than for any other vaccine, and that this information was not being shared in any way.

“There were some 8,000 serious adverse events sitting in an MHRA database that were not being communicated to the medical professionals, and certainly not communicated to parents or children who were at the point of making a decision about vaccination,” Verkerk says.

Other Gardasil Facts

These seem like extraordinary risks just to prevent an infection that is cleared by more than 90 percent of people without a problem.22 As noted in the film, the HPV vaccine’s underlying technology was originally developed by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers, then sold to Merck23 and fast-tracked to licensure, despite the fact the vaccine failed to fulfill two of the criteria for fast-tracking.

In their paper, “Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines as an Option for Preventing Cervical Malignancies How Effective and Safe?” Tomlijenovic, Spinosa and Shaw point out questionable surrogate markers for efficacy were used.24,25

It’s also important to realize that Gardasil was approved after being tested in fewer than 1,200 children under the age of 16,26 and that bioactive aluminum “controls” are being used in clinical HPV vaccine trials,27,28,29,30 thereby masking neurological symptoms.

Gardasil is also pushed by pediatricians who are shielded from legal accountability for vaccine injuries and deaths — just like vaccine manufacturers are shielded from civil liability in U.S. courts.31 Many doctors, as noted in the film, are completely unaware of the fact that Gardasil had generated nearly 30,000 adverse reaction reports to the U.S. government, including 140 deaths32 by December 13, 2013.

By October 14, 2018, there had been 54,123 adverse reaction reports made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), including 331 deaths following administration of either the four-strain or nine-strain Gardasil vaccine.33

While that sounds like a lot, that’s just a fraction of the real numbers of Gardasil reactions, injuries and deaths that have actually occurred, as most doctors either do not report them to the government, or they instead make reports directly to Merck (which are not made public).34,35,36 In fact, less than 1 percent of adverse vaccine reactions are reported to VAERS.37

The facts surrounding the HPV vaccine are such that they raise many questions. Yet those who dare ask them are unfailingly attacked as “anti-vaxxers” or “vaccine deniers.”

It’s a sad fact that you cannot get an accurate picture of the situation from mainstream media, as the press is “held hostage,” as it were, by drug advertising dollars. They simply won’t report both sides of the story as this will result in the loss of millions of dollars in advertising.

It’s also difficult to get a clear view by looking at the medical literature, as there’s a tremendous amount of censorship going on there as well. In the film, Dr. Sin Hang Lee, a pathologist known for using cutting-edge DNA sequencing for molecular diagnoses and director of Milford Molecular Diagnostics, comments on this, saying most of his papers on the HPV vaccine and its potential adverse effects have been rejected by the medical journals. “It’s editorial censorship,” he says.

Shocking Revelation: Gardasil Safety Trials Were Not Designed to Detect Safety Problems

There are a few rare exceptions to the muzzling of the press though. One of them was a December 17, 2017, Slate article38 in which Frederik Joelving exposed egregious flaws in Gardasil’s testing.

The public was told that the three HPV vaccines marketed in the U.S. were tested on tens of thousands of individuals around the world, without any compelling evidence of serious side effects having emerged. While that reads well on paper, the shocking truth appears to be that these trials were never designed to detect and evaluate serious side effects in the first place.

According to Joelving, “An eight-month investigation by Slate found the major Gardasil trials were flawed from the outset … and that regulators allowed unreliable methods to be used to test the vaccine’s safety.”

Contrary to logic, serious adverse events were only recorded during a two-week period post-vaccination. Moreover, during this narrow window of time, trial investigators “used their personal judgment to decide whether or not to report any medical problem as an adverse event,” Joelving reports.

Importantly, and shockingly, most of the health problems that arose after vaccination were simply marked down as “medical history” rather than potential side effects — a tactic that basically ensured that most side effects would be overlooked. No record was made of symptom severity, duration or outcome.

Even with this gross reporting flaw, at least one Gardasil trial of the new nine-valent vaccine reported nearly 10 percent of subjects experienced “severe systemic adverse events” affecting multiple system organ classes, and over 3 percent suffered “severe vaccine-related adverse events.”39 Joelving writes:

“In an internal 2014 EMA report40 about Gardasil 9 obtained through a freedom-of-information request, senior experts called the company’s approach ‘unconventional and suboptimal’ and said it left some ‘uncertainty’ about the safety results.

EMA trial inspectors made similar observations in another report, noting that Merck’s procedure was ‘not an optimal method of collecting safety data, especially not systemic side effects that could appear long after the vaccinations were given.’”

HPV Vaccine Is Unnecessary

As noted by Hang Lee in the film, cervical cancer is one of the least concerning types of cancer “because it takes 15 to 30 years from the point of infection with HPV to [develop into] cancer, and if you catch the precancerous changes, you can always do something about it.”

In the U.S., cervical cancer declined more than 70 percent after pap screening became a routine part of women’s health care in the 1960s. As of 2018, about 13,240 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed, and about 4,170 will die from it.41

The reason why the mortality rate is so low is because your immune system is usually strong enough to clear up this kind of infection on its own, and does so in more than 90 percent of all cases. According to the film, the vast majority of those who die have not had a Pap smear in the last five years.

According to Shannon Mulvihill, a registered nurse and executive director of Focus For Health in Warren, New Jersey, if you get regular pap smears, your chances of dying from cervical cancer is 0.00002 percent.

Is it really worth sickening thousands at the off-chance the vaccine might save a handful of people from dying from cervical cancer? The fact is, PAP smears prevent cervical cancer deaths far more effectively than the HPV vaccine ever will. In the film, Hang Lee provides the following data, showing just how minuscule the potential benefit of Gardasil really is:

  • HPV vaccines target 70 percent of HPV strains affecting human populations, though new versions target more strains
  • IF these vaccines were 100 percent effective, ONE death would be prevented for every 100,000 vaccinated women or 1.3 deaths out of 100,000 for the newer vaccines covering a greater number of HPV strains
  • The average cost of Gardasil vaccination in the U.S. is about $700 per person, which means the cost to vaccinate 100,000 girls — in the hopes it will save a single person among them from dying from cervical cancer — is $70 million

That single death can easily be avoided by more regular screening, “So, why add another $70 million for no clear benefit?” Hang Lee says.

HPV — A Manufactured Crisis

As noted by Gretchen DuBeau, executive and legal director for Alliance for Natural Health, USA:

“This vaccine is not safe, it’s not financially rational and it’s not necessary. So, essentially, we’ve manufactured a crisis and created a solution that’s very lucrative for many but harms our children. We’ve looked at over 300 studies that show children between the ages of 3 and 11 have the HPV virus in their bodies.

Some studies show they have it at birth, others, you’re looking at children that are preschool age, but the point is that we have a lot of … unanswered questions about the possibility of this virus being transmitted from mother to child at birth.

This is critical because when one is vaccinated with this vaccine and that person already has the HPV virus, it increases their chances of developing cervical and other cancers.

So, we are putting our children not only at risk in all of the ways we’ve already seen with the adverse events … the autoimmune conditions … but we’re also looking at the possibility of increasing, down the road, the likelihood that many of these children could develop additional cancers because of this vaccine … This is a huge issue. We have to ask these questions; we have to study this more carefully.”

Sources and References

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Ron Paul: Yes, Health Freedom Includes Vaccines

Vaccine Controversy Shows Why We Need Markets, Not Mandates

written by Ron Paul Sunday, February 8, 2015
If I were still a practicing ob-gyn and one of my patients said she was not going to vaccinate her child, I might try to persuade her to change her mind. But, if I were unsuccessful, I would respect her decision. I certainly would not lobby the government to pass a law mandating that children be vaccinated even if the children’s parents object. Sadly, the recent panic over the outbreak of measles has led many Americans, including some self-styled libertarians, to call for giving government new powers to force all children to be vaccinated.Those who are willing to make an “exception” to the principle that parents should make health care decisions for their children should ask themselves when in history has a “limited” infringement on individual liberty stayed limited. By ceding the principle that individuals have the right to make their own health care decisions, supporters of mandatory vaccines are opening the door for future infringements on health freedom.If government can mandate that children receive vaccines, then why shouldn’t the government mandate that adults receive certain types of vaccines? And if it is the law that individuals must be vaccinated, then why shouldn’t police officers be empowered to physically force resisters to receive a vaccine? If the fear of infections from the unvaccinated justifies mandatory vaccine laws, then why shouldn’t police offices fine or arrest people who don’t wash their hands or cover their noses or mouths when they cough or sneeze in public? Why not force people to eat right and take vitamins in order to lower their risk of contracting an infectious disease? These proposals may seem outlandish, but they are no different in principle from the proposal that government force children to be vaccinated.

By giving vaccine companies a captive market, mandates encourage these companies to use their political influence to expand the amount of vaccine mandates. An example of how vaccine mandates may have led politics to override sound science is from my home state of Texas. In 2007, the then-Texas governor signed an executive order forcing eleven and twelve year old girls to receive the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, even though most young girls are not at risk of HPV. The Texas legislature passed legislation undoing the order following a massive public outcry, fueled by revelations that the governor’s former chief of staff was a top lobbyist for the company that manufactured the HPV vaccine.

The same principles that protect the right to refuse vaccines also protect the right of individuals to refuse to associate with the unvaccinated. Private property owners have the right to forbid those who reject vaccines from entering their property. This right extends to private businesses concerned that unvaccinated individuals could pose a risk to their employees and customers. Consistent application of the principles of private property, freedom of association, and individual responsibility is the best way to address concerns that those who refuse vaccines could infect others with disease.

Giving the government the power to override parental decisions regarding vaccines will inevitably lead to further restrictions on liberties. After all, if government can override parental or personal health care decisions, then what area of our lives is off-limits to government interference? Concerns about infection from the unvaccinated can be addressed by consistent application of the principles of private property and freedom of association. Instead of justifying new government intrusion into our lives, the vaccine debate provides more evidence of the need to restore respect for private property and individual liberty.

From The Ron Paul Institute, here.