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Japanese HPV vaccine lawsuit

Japanese HPV vaccine lawsuit – no science, no evidence

The HPV vaccine, specifically the Gardasil 9-valent version, is one of the handful of ways to actually prevent cancer. Along with the hepatitis-B vaccine, the HPV vaccine helps prevent future incidence of dangerous cancers. Unfortunately, a Japanese HPV vaccine lawsuit has been filed in that country by 64 women.

Gardasil has had a tumultuous history in Japan. The vaccine is no longer recommended for Japanese teens, based on an unscientific analysis of evidence related to adverse events. The Japanese Health Ministry accepted supposed “adverse events” after Gardasil vaccine as causal, even though the rate of these adverse events after vaccination was LOWER than the general non-vaccinated population. It was total incompetence on the part of the Health Ministry.

Let’s take a look at this lawsuit in Japan – and we need to see what it really means.

Read More »Japanese HPV vaccine lawsuit – no science, no evidence

Gardasil causes behavioral issues

Gardasil causes behavioral issues – more myth debunking

This article has been updated and can be found here. The comments for this article have been closed permanently.

I could have a full-time job just debunking the rumors and myths about the HPV cancer-preventing vaccine, Gardasil. I’d bet one year of my Big Pharma Shill Income™ that the anti-vaccination gangsters make up more junk science about Gardasil than all other vaccines put together. And now, bogus claims that Gardasil causes behavior issues – time for a critical analysis.

This new claim about Gardasil arises from an article, “Behavioral abnormalities in young female mice following administration of aluminum adjuvants and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil,” published in the well respected, relatively high impact factor, journal Vaccine. When it was first published, my thoughts were that the editors of Vaccine missed something. Given that it’s been “temporarily removed,” I guess they did.

But let’s look at this claim with our critical thinking skills, which most of the readers here have.

Read More »Gardasil causes behavioral issues – more myth debunking

gardasil researcher

Is a Gardasil researcher really against the vaccine?

This article about Dr. Diane Harper has been recently updated. The comments here are closed, so please comment at the new article. 

Because vaccine deniers lack any scientific evidence supporting their unfounded belief system about immunizations, they tend to rely upon unscientific information like anecdotes, logical fallacies, misinterpretation of data, or Italian provincial courts to make their case about the lack of safety of vaccines.

It’s rather easy to debunk these claims, but because of the nature of the internet, old news is recycled as “brand new,” requiring a whole new round of blog posts to discredit the misinformation. It’s impossible to recall one single instance where a vaccine refuser made a statement about vaccines that was not, in fact, rather quickly debunked. Not one.

The pro-children’s health side, those of us who think that vaccines save lives, have been winning the hearts and minds for awhile, given that still around 95% of children in the USA get all of their immunizations prior to entering kindergarten. But that doesn’t stop the refusers from trying, because various zombie anti-vaccination memes keep reappearing, especially since the successful pro-vaccine bill was signed into law in California.

One of the latest ones involves a so-called lead Gardasil researcher, Dr. Diane Harper, a former “consultant” to Merck (and GSK, who manufacturers Cervarix, a bivalent HPV vaccine), who apparently had some research role in the clinical trials of the HPV vaccines. But what are the facts?

Read More »Is a Gardasil researcher really against the vaccine?

Big Pharma vaccine profits – the real conspiracy

Editor’s note: Note – this article has been updated and published here

One of the ongoing memes, tropes and fabrications of the vaccine deniers is somehow, somewhere, in some Big Pharma boardroom, a group of men and women in suits choose the next vaccine in some magical way, and foist it upon the world just to make billions of dollars. And while magically concocting the vaccine brew, these pharmaceutical execs ignore ethics and morals just to make a profit on hapless vaccine-injured victims worldwide.

The Big Pharma profits conspiracy trope ranges across the junk medicine world. Homeopathy, for example, claims that Big Pharma suppresses the data that shows water cures all diseases. Like Ebola.

But the Big Pharma vaccine profits conspiracy is still one of most amusing myths of the antivaccination world.Read More »Big Pharma vaccine profits – the real conspiracy

Mumps vaccine effectiveness and waning immunity

MMR-vaccine-mumpsIn a previous article, from our vaccine legal expert, Dorit Reiss, we learned that there’s a whistleblower lawsuit against Merck regarding the possibility that the company may have engaged in some inappropriate actions in determining the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine (for mumps, measles and rubella), specifically the mumps component of the vaccine. As Reiss stated, despite the suit (and recent ruling which just whether the case could go forward) being a boon to the antivaccination crowd, so far no facts have actually been presented.

In essence, the whistleblowers claim that Merck, the manufacturer of the MMR vaccine, through either direct falsification or poor study design, may have overstated the effectiveness of the mumps component of the vaccine. Merck had been claiming that the vaccine was approximately 95% effective (meaning at least 95% of children given the vaccine were protected against the disease).

So let’s be clear about this so-called whistleblower lawsuit–no evidence has been presented, and that evidence hasn’t been cross-examined. And one more thing–courts do not decide science, it’s not their role. Science is not a debate, it is a cold evaluation of evidence. And in science, the weight of the evidence is both in quality and quantity. Unless you’re a complete anti-science cult member, whatever this court decides, whatever malfeasance was practiced by Merck, whatever the whistleblowers have to say, the scientific evidence tells us that the mumps vaccine component is highly effective and extremely safe.Read More »Mumps vaccine effectiveness and waning immunity

Gardasil’s safety and effectiveness-Part 47. Long-Term Study

hpv-factsThis is my 47th article on the HPV quadrivalent vaccine, also known as Gardasil (or Silgard in Europe), which can prevent infection by human papillomavirus, substantially reducing the risk of several types of cancers.* Forty-seven** articles about Gardasil and the HPV vaccine! You’d think I would be tiring of it by now, but I think that Gardasil (or Silgard) are critically important in easily stopping cancers.

I find it ironic that people are always looking for the next “cancer cure”, but here’s Gardasil which prevents cancer from even starting. Which people seem to ignore for their children, even if, as parents, they vaccinate their children for everything else.

I tend to focus on Gardasil because there is a general understanding that the uptake of Gardasil amongst the target group (young boys and girls) is falling far short of goals. A recent report from the CDC showed that only 57% of girls and 35% of boys, aged 13-17 years, have received at least one of the three recommended doses of the HPV vaccine. Let’s look at it another way–43% of girls and 65% of boys are being put at risk to contracting some very nasty cancers. According to the CDC, roughly 79 million Americans are infected with HPV–approximately 14 million Americans contract HPV every year. Many individuals don’t even know they have the infection until the onset of cancer.Read More »Gardasil’s safety and effectiveness-Part 47. Long-Term Study

I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Big Pharma Shill Party

The official Big Pharma Shill t-shirt.

My official Big Pharma Shill® t-shirt. Thanks to the Facebook group, Refutations to Anti-vaxx Memes. https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM

Occasionally, I receive thinly veiled questions about my integrity and ethics in the comments of various posts, in emails, or on social networking sites. Mostly, I laugh about them since they are a form of Ad hominem argument, called the Big Pharma Shill Gambit, where one side of an argument tries to dismiss the scientific evidence of another side by accusing them of being a paid mouthpiece for pharmaceutical companies. My response is generally to state that I am “polishing the gold bars stored in the basements of Big Pharma offices,” and I don’t get paid very much to do that–it’s just about the only answer worthy of the stupidity of these accusations.

The problem with actually trying to dismiss these accusations is that it’s nearly impossible to dismiss the accusations with evidence, because as we know, proving the negative is almost impossible. I could post my investment documents, and you will see that I own many shares of stock and mutual funds that invest in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Companies I might discuss might make up 0.1% of the holdings of the mutual fund, which means I own around 0.000000001% of a single Big Pharma company. Now, I am certainly not arrogant enough to believe that what I write has any effect on some company’s stock price, but if it did, I reap the rewards of ½¢. Woo hoo. 

Of course, even if I did post my stock holdings, someone will accuse me of hiding my 2 million shares of Merck stock in my secret offshore bank account. Which probably is in the same vault as the shiny Big Pharma gold bars. Read More »I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Big Pharma Shill Party

HPV vaccinations lagging despite strong safety and effectiveness

hpvThe CDC recently reported that only about half of US teenager girls have received the safe and effective quadrivalent HPV vaccine (HPV4), a disappointing level of vaccine uptake. Moreover, this rate hasn’t changed over the past three years, despite significant efforts to increase the awareness and effectiveness of the vaccine amongst teenagers. Even worse news in this report is that only about one-third of teenage girls have been fully immunized with all three doses.

HPV quadrivalent vaccine, also known as Gardasil (or Silgard in Europe), is marketed by Merck & Co., usually for vaccination of teenage girls (with an increasing number of boys). The vaccine prevents the transmission of certain types (pdf) of human papillomavirus (HPV), specifically types 6, 11, 16 and 18. 

HPV types 16 and 18 cause approximately 70% of cervical cancers, and caused most HPV-induced anal (95% linked to HPV), vulvar (50% linked), vaginal (65% linked), oropharyngeal (60% linked) and penile (35% linked) cancers. These cancers, mostly related to HPV, can be prevented as long as you can prevent the HPV infection from ever happening, which usually happens through genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex.

HPV may also be passed on during oral sex and genital-to-genital contact. HPV can be passed on between straight and same-sex partners—even when the infected partner has no signs or symptoms. Approximately 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20′s, are infected with HPV, and about 14 million people become infected each year in the USA.Read More »HPV vaccinations lagging despite strong safety and effectiveness

Study shows HPV vaccine lowers HPV infection risk in teen girls

conservative-HPV-vaccineHPV quadrivalent vaccine, also known as Gardasil (or Silgard in Europe), is marketed by Merck, usually for vaccination of teenage girls (with an increasing number of boys). The vaccine prevents the transmission of certain types (pdf) of human papillomavirus (HPV), specifically types 6, 11, 16 and 18. HPV types 16 and 18 cause approximately 70% of cervical cancers, and caused most HPV-induced anal (95% linked to HPV), vulvar (50% linked), vaginal (65% linked), oropharyngeal (60% linked) and penile (35% linked) cancers. These cancers, mostly related to HPV, can be prevented as long as you can prevent the HPV infection from ever happening, which usually happens through genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex. HPV may also be passed on during oral sex and genital-to-genital contact. HPV can be passed on between straight and same-sex partners—even when the infected partner has no signs or symptoms. Approximately 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20’s, are infected with HPV, and about 14 million people become infected each year in the USA.Read More »Study shows HPV vaccine lowers HPV infection risk in teen girls

I get an email about Gardasil

hpv posterI get lots of email about my articles that are published here. Sometimes, it’s about grammar or spelling (and the grammar KGB can be uncivil at times). Sometimes, it’s compliments or questions about what I’ve written. Rarely, they’re rude and usually include quite immature comments about the location of my head. However, I recently received an email that is more or less polite, but is filled with so many errors and logical fallacies, that I thought it should be critiqued publicly.

Here are my point-by-point comments about the email:

I stumbled across your blog and could not believe what I was reading about the safety of Gardasil.  As a mother of a Gardasil injured daughter, your profuse endorsement made me skeptical.  I want to begin by saying I am not anti-vaccine;  I am anti-Gardasil. Read More »I get an email about Gardasil