What is Gardasil?

[LaTasha Taylor]

My 9 year old had her 2nd Gardasil shot today.

What is it? Gardasil is a vaccine that can blocks infection from those strains of HPV (Human papilloma virus), that are the most common cause of cervical cancer. According to cnn.health, cervical cancer is the number 2 cancer in women, resulting in 470,000 new cases and 233,000 deaths worldwide each year. Gardasil is only effective prior to infection: as a result, the recommendation is for the vaccines to be given prior to the start of sexual activity. Many states are considering making this vaccine mandatory for middle school girls.

Why the controversy? Some fear that mass immunizations will confer a tacit approval of early sexual behavior. They worry that the protection the vaccine offers will remove one of the dangers of early sexual behavior, thus encouraging more girls to become sexually active.

Faulty Logic. It’s questionable that a fear of cervical cancer is keeping girls from engaging in sex to begin with. Plus, there are still other consequences, like AIDS, pregnancy, and other STD’s. The claim that adding more protections encourages dangerous behavior is just plain illogical. That’s like saying that we shouldn’t put seatbelts in cars because that will encourage people to drive recklessly. As responsible people, we want our kids to have all the protections they can get.

Double standard. Let’s face it, no matter how we try to pretend otherwise, we get more up in arms over the idea of our girls having sex than we would if the conversation was about boys. But here’s another way to look at it: What if we discovered that prostate cancer was caused by an STD, and we had a vaccine that could prevent it if it was given to boys before they became sexually active? Would there even be a debate? The fact that we are squeamish about our daughters having sex shouldn’t impact the comprehensiveness of their health care. Is cancer a fitting punishment for promiscuity?

Financial factors. One of the core reasons for making the vaccine mandatory is to increase availability. As it stands now, the three-dose regimen costs patients $360. The cost makes it prohibitive for many patients; it can also impact medical practitioners’ ability to keep an adequate supply of the vaccine on hand. Making Gardasil part of the compulsory vaccine panel ensures that all girls, not just those informed and affluent enough, have access.



http://teen-health.suite101.com/article.cfm/teens_and_cervical_cancer#ixzz0Icg5nrPV&D

[MARY JANE]

Speak on !Yes it is in every thing go back to our great grand parents days things were different shoot my 13 year old is bigger than her dd or me.Why, we do not know she eats the same stuff we do it is adde stuffin our foods. if its preserved in a can for months ,shoot how do you know the preservitative ain't stuck in your bod

[MARY JANE]

Girl so true did you hear about the persons wanting to expose their children to the swine flu? People seem to forget it is a live version of the disease, you may live you may not. All these new things are just that new scientist are not truely confident in all they do or say it all changes in a manner of months remeber the cold stuff now look it causes more problems.

[LaTasha Taylor]

This is a really good discussion. Thanks for every one sharing their thoughts. I read a lot of good points/views. The most important thing that some people hit on is "educating our children", teaching them to be smart about their discussion. Some of the mistakes made can cause regret in the future. We should not be afraid to communicate with our children. Even though sometimes it seems as if though they're not paying attention, they hear us. We can not always protect our children, no matter how hard we try or pray, but as good parents we must do our best or what we think is our best. What's good for one may not be good for another. On the flip side, what's good for one may save a life.

[Cleo Allen]

There is another topic that you should be checking about about Gardisil. My daughter is NOT getting it. Young girls are dying from this vaccine. Here is the link.


Did Gardasil Kill Jenny Tetlock?
Friday, July 31, 2009
Barbara Mellers' daughter, Jenny, 15, passed away in March 2009. Is Gardasil to blame?
Jenny Tetlock

Barbara Mellers
Jenny Tetlock was a 15-year-old girl who lost her battle to a rapidly degenerative neurological disease on March 15, 2009. She started developing symptoms just two months after her final Gardasil injection. Her mom, Barbara, shares her story with momlogic.

ML: What kind of child was Jenny? Please describe your daughter, prior to her getting sick.

Barbara: Jenny was very active. She played soccer for many years. She enjoyed school. She liked English, science, and struggled a bit with math. She had some friends her own age. Jenny was raised essentially as an only child, because her half-brother is 16 years older than she. She hung around with us a lot and learned to enjoy and relate to grown-ups. One of the most charming things about her was how well she could connect with people of many ages.

ML: When and why did Jenny get the Gardasil vaccine?

Barbara: We had come back from a sabbatical year in New York, and Jenny needed a Hepatitis B vaccine to get registered for school. Her pediatrician mentioned this new vaccine. He said it was good, and recommended we give it to Jenny. Without much thought, I agreed, and we started the 3 vaccinations. Jenny was 12 when she received her first vaccine. That was September 2006. The second was in November 2006, and the third was in March 2007. In May 2007, she began to weaken. She died 20 months later.

ML: When did Jenny start showing symptoms or signs that something was wrong?

Barbara: In May 2007, Jenny came home from school one day having tripped over a hurdle in P.E. class. It was 1 and a half feet high. All the other kids cleared it easily. A few days later, she tripped again on the same hurdle and fell on her knee. She hurt it badly, and stayed home for a few days. Then she developed a limp that never went away. With some degenerative neurological diseases, you can lose as much as 40% of your motor neurons before you even begin to show weakness. That may have happened to Jenny.

We thought it would get better, but when it didn't, we went back to her pediatrician. We thought, perhaps her legs were different lengths. But no, the doctor said things were fine and gave her strengthening exercises. A month or two went by and we didn't see any improvement. The pediatrician suggested sports therapy. We went to Children's Hospital in Oakland and started several months of physical therapy in August 2007.

In October 2007, things weren't getting better. She then went to a pediatric neurologist, who started tests. In December 2007, we took her to another specialist at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. He immediately started treatment for multifocal motor neuropathy. Jenny received IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin). We went home and followed up with a specialist at UCSF. The treatment wasn't working. She was getting weaker. By that time, she was falling too much and went from crutches to a walker. She started taking steroids. That didn't seem to work either. We still didn't know what the problem was, and we hoped the Philadelphia doctor was correct in his diagnosis. He thought she'd eventually recover in 9-10 months after extensive treatment.

In January 2008, we took Jenny to Children's Hospital in Stanford. The Stanford doctor immediately put her in the hospital to do testing, imaging, biopsies, and more. We stayed there for two weeks, but the treatments didn't seem to help. After being home for a few weeks, we went back for a few more weeks. Meanwhile, Jenny was losing her ability to hold herself up. She tried going back to school with an electric scooter, but it was just too hard. She couldn't even write or take notes. She stayed home with a tutor. We were going to the hospital and seeing many different doctors to figure out what was going on. Jenny started new treatments -- chemotherapy in March 2008. We didn't see any improvement at that point either.

Around April, we noticed that her breathing was compromised. Her FVC (forced vital capacity) was about half of what it should be. Eventually she needed help with breathing, so she went on a noninvasive ventilator. She was also given a feeding tube.

In June/July 2008, we tried to figure out how to adapt with life at home. We had nursing help. Jenny was losing her ability to turn over in bed. I slept with her and turned her whenever she wanted, trying to keep her happy and comfortable. By now, she was in bed most of the time. We had two goals. One was to find a cure, and the other was to maintain her quality of life. We wanted to keep her busy, happy, and distracted. Friends, family, and specialists came by. We had wonderful friends helping us look for other children who were similar to Jenny. We set up a website. We reached out to doctors all over the world to find treatments, experimental drugs, and medications. We tried so many things. Sometimes we thought she was getting better. Maybe the disease was slowing down or even reversing. Then she'd get a little worse, and we knew we were wrong.

In August/September 2008, school started. We got a tutor for her and overnight nursing help. Jenny had physical and occupational therapy several times a week. She was using the noninvasive ventilator around the clock. She also had a computer to help her communicate. We weren't making a lot of progress, although we kept thinking we might be. Christmas was a low point. She felt miserable. There was nausea from the medications and treatments, air in her stomach from the ventilator, and other types of pain. We worked hard to keep her feeling as good as possible.

Her birthday came on January 12th, 2009. At that point, we felt like there was actually some strengthening in her hands. She was getting more control. Then in early March, she started having trouble breathing -- despite the noninvasive ventilator. We took her to the hospital and brought her home. But things got worse. On March 9th, 2009, we took her to UCSF. She was losing her voice and her breath was very labored. She died on March 15th, 2009.

ML: When Jenny passed away, what was believed to be her cause of death?

Barbara: There was always some degree of controversy between those who favored the motor neuron diagnosis (juvenile ALS) and those who thought the disease process was autoimmune in causation. At this point, medical opinion has swung quite decisively toward the autoimmune theory, which is more consistent with the hypothesis that the Gardasil vaccine was the trigger.

ML: How did you link Gardasil to a possible cause of death?

Barbara: During the Stanford hospital stays, we discussed Jenny's medical history, and initially only a few physicians thought there might be a link. Nonetheless, we filed Jenny's case in a federal database called VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) and tried to find comparable girls. The system is outdated, underutilized, and extremely hard to use. Now we have found at least one comparable case that we have been told was filed by Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil. But the information is too vague and incomplete for the CDC to contact the family. To the best of our knowledge, Merck has yet to provide the necessary information. I want to take this opportunity to beg Merck to help our doctors and the government agencies to identify any other cases that might be comparable. I know that Jenny would want us to do everything humanly possible to make sure no other girl ever suffers the pain, humiliation, and misery that she went through in the last two years of her life.

ML: Did anyone from Merck or affiliated with Merck contact you or try to reach you?

Barbara: No. As far as we know, Merck has not responded to requests for information, either from us or from Jenny's doctors. There are two types of information that experts investigating these cases need. First, Merck needs to share widely all information about any other girls with comparable symptoms. Second, Merck needs to answer -- in a transparent and scientific way -- the serious questions that have been raised about batches of vaccines that might be linked to manufacturing problems. There have been reports of bad batches. We have obtained the lot numbers from Jenny's vaccinations and asked how the lot numbers relate to the batches. We have been told that key information that experts need to test hypotheses about bad lots -- key information like how many kids received vaccines from each lot -- is considered proprietary.

ML: Is there a way legally to get them to disclose the information about the lot numbers or bad batches of the vaccine?

Barbara: I don't know, but I hope so. From a humanitarian point of view, Merck should have been much more forthcoming with information that could help the scientists working on this problem. But I see no evidence of it happening. It is a sad state of affairs if our government can't get this important information. It is also ironic, since pharmaceutical companies are protected from lawsuits involving adverse events related to the vaccines. In the 1980s, the government set up a National Vaccine Court, designed to keep pharmaceutical companies investing in vaccinations. Parents pay a surcharge on each vaccine, and that money is used by the National Vaccine Court to pay families who have experienced adverse events that followed the vaccine.

ML: What is being done now in terms of trying to figure out Jenny's cause of
death?

Barbara: Stay tuned. Researchers at major research universities are carefully studying Jenny's case, and those of possible comparables. The evidence should be out in a few months. At least some of the evidence will very likely be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I believe it will soon be much more difficult to deny the evidence linking Gardasil to devastating side effects in a small number of high-vulnerability cases.

ML: Have any families contacted you about their daughters? Or have you found anyone else who went through what Jenny did after taking Gardasil?

Barbara: We found another young lady who has since passed away. Her mom contacted us through our blog. She's Mormon, and had the Gardasil vaccine prior to going on her mission. She came home from her mission early due to weakness, and passed away in August 2008. There are many deeply disturbing similarities, and her case is being investigated by the same researchers.

Then another mom contacted us through the website. Her daughter experienced weakness after the Gardasil vaccine, and the young lady is currently in braces and having a great deal of trouble walking.

I think the story will slowly but surely come together. If any of your readers know of teenage girls or young adolescent girls who have experienced severe weakening or paralysis, please ask them to contact us. Jenny's website can be found by Googling "Jenny's Journey." You can reach us from that site.

ML: Is Gardasil to blame for your daughter's death, in your opinion?

Barbara: Personally, I believe that Gardasil is the most plausible explanation. But it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that a number of prominent medical scientists at leading universities now believe that Gardasil is the most likely explanation for Jenny's case. The next big question is going to be why Jenny and perhaps a small number of other girls? And why do millions of girls who get the vaccine do just fine? That is a mystery waiting to be solved. Important clues are already starting to come to light. And I will be glad to update you again as the story unfolds.

Is the Gardasil vaccine safe for your daughter? Momlogic's OB/GYN Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz went on NBC's "Today" show this morning to shed more light on the subject.

[BlackHomeSchoolers]

WHY ARE YOU PUSHING THIS VACCINE? YOU SOUND LIKE YOU ARE A DRUG PUSHER FOR THE GOVERNMENT. THIS STUFF IS DANGEROUS. HOW DARE YOU TRY TO DOWN PLAY THIS DRUG AND IT'S REAL INTENDED PURPOSE. RESEARCH BEFORE YOU START PUSHING DRUGS FOR THE GOVERNMENT. THEY ARE LIARS AND CARE NOTHING ABOUT YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN.

[ADRIENNE STRACHN]

I STILL AM AFRAID TO GIVE MY DAUGHTERS THIS SHOT,,, I FEEL IT IS NEW..WHAT ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS,...HOW MANY MOTHERS ARE DOING THIS TO THEIR DAUGHTERS,,,WHY ARE WE RUSHING OFF TO GIVE A SHORT THAT IS JUST NEW TO OUR DAUGHTERS.. SUPPOSE UR DAUGHTER IS NOT SEXUALLY ACTIVE.....CONFUSED???

[ADRIENNE STRACHN]

I STILL AM AFRAID TO GIVE MY DAUGHTERS THIS SHOT,,, I FEEL IT IS NEW..WHAT ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS,...HOW MANY MOTHERS ARE DOING THIS TO THEIR DAUGHTERS,,,WHY ARE WE RUSHING OFF TO GIVE A SHORT THAT IS JUST NEW TO OUR DAUGHTERS.. SUPPOSE UR DAUGHTER IS NOT SEXUALLY ACTIVE.....CONFUSED???

[C_Beyondlimits]

This shot is mandatory in Texas and I am so against this being MANDATORY in order for my daughter to get to junior high school. Some mothers are so proud of the fact that they are protecting their child from everything they can and they see this shot as one way to do that. But, I look at it as another experimental shot that they will find damaging effects for later on and I don't want to subject my daughter to that. Young girls have lost their lives behind this shot already. They can sing it's praises all they want.. I'll be fighting against this one.

[Maria]

I'm not saying this vaccine is ok but there are far more women and girls dying from HPV than the vaccine. My daughters girl scout troop does an HPV walk every year. I really hadn't known much about HPV prior to participating in the walk. Once I starting talking to people about the walk I was very surprised by the amount of friends and friends of friends that have HPV. Now, I have not taken my daughter to get the shot but I also do not like the idea of it becoming mandatory. At the same time can we really fault the government for trying to find a way to prevent it? They could do more research etc. See the people who have lost family members are the ones really pushing and fighting for this vaccine.

[Nappykat]

Let me share a little true story with yall.

I started having sex at 16. I never had any problems or symptoms of anything after I started having sex. I got pregnant at 17 and started getting check-ups. About 3 months into my pregnancy I was diagnosed as having chlamydia. Now they say chlamydia is the #1 sexually transmitted disease among young people today. I'm talking 17 years ago now.

I had one sexual partner and although he didn't say it then, he suspected I was cheating. I didn't know what to think because up until that point I knew I was his only partner too, but after getting diag with chlamydia, I started having doubts about his fidelity. Well he got tested and he tested negative. Now I'm thinking if this is sexually transmitted disease how the hell does he test negative? Where do I get it from then? And I'm still asking questions on that one. Now I was sexually assaulted as a child, so I figured if I had the disease, it might have laid dormant until I got pregnant more than a decade later - which I hear is possible but rare. Last I heard, some girl that use to work for Planned Parenthood told me that is entirely possible to get chlamydia and NOT from sex because it's a bacteria and bacteria can easily enter the body from various other sources. So why are they still calling it a STD then and setting up folks and relationships to infidelity and distrustful doom? Now I married that man and till this day he has never tested positive for any disease whatsoever. Can't say the same thing for me. Up until 2 years ago, I had sex with ONE MAN. And yet I had the medical establishment tell me about 8-10 year ago I had tricomonus from a [i]urine[/i] sample and at some point was told I had ghono too - probably at the same time they said I had trich. At the time I was diag with these there was no vaginal or cervical culture done and no blood work, just a urine sample done. I didn't get a 2nd opinion when they told me I had chlmyida but I dam show got one when they told I had trick and gono. TESTED NEGATIVE. From then on I had tested negative.

Do you know how that can fvck up a relationship? Do you know the chaos and distrust that can cause - especially when you are absolutely F'ing clueless because you been in a monogamous relationship during the entire course of he relationship ( and for those that just gotta ask - don't give a dam if you don't believe me but I ain't stupid or naive and would readily admit to his cheating. However there is nothing to indicate to me whatsoever that he had cheated so I believe he has not. Contrary to what some of you believe and have experience, some men really don't cheat. But I guess a lotta you gotta experience that to know. Sorry if you ain't never experience that).

Anyways - here's the point, (on the tricamous at least) - maybe these medical fuggers don't really know or don't really care - especially if you black. They say HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer. But when has cancer EVER been sexually transmitted? Is titty cancer sexually transmitted? What about prostate cancer? The prostate is near is man's butt, and I've read and heard that it can be stimulated with inter-anal stimulation. So any dude getting their butt poked sexually and has rectal or prostate cancer could be caused by an STD - feel me? But it's not. They don't even know how you get these cancers, it just happens. And I contend that [i]maybe[/i] they aren't too sure how you get HPV, but it's in the area that you have sex, and sex causes a lot of problems so it's just easy to say that HPV is cased by sex - and by extension cervical cancer is caused by sex.

Look, doctors are great. The medical establishment is great. They save a lotta people. But believe me - better be cautious and get a 2nd opinion a lotta times. You gotta right to feel cautious about this vaccine - and I'm cautious because I wonder just how, really, do you get HPV? Or if there is another way of transmission? In the other thread about the Gardisil killing folks, one lady said her daughter has never had sex and still got (abnormal?) cells on her cervix? How?

Use your best judgment. Weigh the pros against the cons and then decide. Vaccines are great, they have eliminated a lot of disease - and more are (should be) coming out all the time. But at this point and time I'm gonna stick with the vaccines that have been out here for decades and have proven mostly safe and effective - MMR, polio and all that. And remember no vaccine is 100% safe and effective on everybody. Sorry to say that even with the ones that been around for a while - some people do get sick and die. That's how it is. But with this particular vaccine - for now I think I'll pass. The oldest daughter has one shot, but that's all she's getting. I ask her if she wanted it and describe it to her and she said no. My other daughter is 11, don't know if she has had it but I need to ask about that. If she has there's nothing I can do about it but expect that she will be OK.

[KimSyne]

Very well said, Nappykat, and for the record I believe you. I don't have as much trust in Western Medicine as you do though.

I believe that if you were not born with a disease, you got that disease from something you put into your body (knowingly or unknowingly) and all these diseases are the result. Our bodies are reacting to years of toxic chemicals in everthing we eat and drink, more checicals if you smoke, God knows what's in those prescription drugs that cure one thing while destroying your body in other unmentionable ways.

Too trust our Government to keep us safe and healthy is ridiculous when they still haven't outlawed the sell of cigarettes, and they won't, even though it's proven that they kill and are highly addictive.

I say no to the vaccines and the chemicals in everything we put into our bodies. Just research...it's easier to find the truth than you think. The Government doesn't hide things...they are just slowly dumming us down in hopes of making us accept whatever, and we do!