French court hands down a ludicrous decision about Gardasil
A few months ago, I covered a story about a French teenager who had filed a lawsuit against a French vaccine manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur (but the patents and trademarks are owned by Merck), along with French health regulators. The lawsuit claimed that side-effects from the HPV quadrivalent vaccine, known as Gardasil (or Silgard), induced multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease that results from inflammation of neurons, in a teenage girl.
As with most of these antivaccination stories and tropes, I analyze them, debunk them, and then move on. I didn’t even bother check up to see if there was a legal decision, mainly because my French reading skills barely go beyond reading a menu and ordering a croque-monsieur at a sidewalk café in Lyon (headquarters of Sanofi Pasteur). But mostly, I just assumed it was one of those silly stories where the antivaccination cult tries to make a mountain out of a tiny pebble on the beach.
Well, I misjudged the desperation of the antivaccination world. Around 8 months ago, the court actually did hand down a decision about this case, but recently the vaccine fear mongering, anti-science websites are starting to push the story. I have no clue why these vaccine refusers are pushing this story eight months later, but it’s probably because they are desperate for anything that makes them relevant, given how irrelevant most of their ideas can be.Read More »French court hands down a ludicrous decision about Gardasil