GARDASIL® for PROFIT?: Health Ontario & "CorpWatch: Merck's Murky Dealings: HPV Vaccine Lobby Backfires"

“There is no Dypraxa, never was, never will be. I know of no wonder-cure for TB that has recently been launched on the African market or any other - or is about to be - so with Luck I shall not be spending the rest of my life in the law courts or worse, though nowadays you can never be sure.

But I can tell you this. As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard.” - John Le Carré, The Constant Gardener, Author's Note, 2001.

okay, look: I have an academic background in HealthCare... I'm not some troglodyte or freak who thinks there is no benefit to sound HealthCare practises & preventative medicine. But I'm not stupid, BUT, BigPharma has an ugly research ethics closet... & nobody can argue that.
Judge recesses: Pfizer's Nigerian experimental malpractice suit
So, when I hear that GARDASIL® is the most expensive vaccine to date... & that *everybody* should be injected... & that all this HYPE is running around about a pretty new vaccine... I ask myself
aren't we being a bit HASTY in deciding ALL YOUNG WOMEN should get a series of HPV shots? I mean... its not as if we've had decades of unbiased research on these shots. The research is *all* done by the companies. No bias THERE, eh?

so why is the only argument about who sticks what in our daughters... about sex & not about BigPharma??
nobody's worried about a generation of women getting *permanently fucked*?

An entire generation of young Canadian women... think about that...
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“Physicians & the Pharmaceutical Industry": Is a Gift Ever Just a Gift?”: variations on an question...
HPV Vaccination — More Answers, More Questions, George F. Sawaya, M.D., and Karen Smith-McCune, M.D., Ph.D.
Flu Shot Epidemic of Mercury: Thimerosal & U.S. Campaign Funds...
"Hard Rain": Bayer Drug Scandal - Factor 8 - Bayer distributed HIV-contaminated drug
Mercury in Toronto Flu Shot? "Free Flu Shot Clinics".
Women contesting lethal side effects of contraceptive pill, CBC, 4.Mar.02
More Than 1 Million Hospital Patients Experience Side Effects and Other Problems With Their Medications
AHRQ News and Numbers, Release date: April 12, 2007
Trends in hospital admissions for adverse drug reactions in England: analysis of national hospital episode statistics 1998-2005
Environment's Chemical Soup: 'harms children's brains'
The American Medical System, Is The Leading Cause Of Death And Injury In The United States
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... yeah, & so does MSM & all the 'false choice' arguments out there. Team Science vs. Team JayZUZ! *sigh* so much for a happy middleground, everybody START YOUR ENGINES!
..

I've no problem with boys, women or even infants receiving strong healthcare & preventative medicine, yes, even for sexually transmitted diseases, BUT:

I'm not saying they *don't work*... I'm saying... aren't we getting a bit giddy in all these 'manditory vaccines'? & I gotta ask myself... maybe they whork... but there aer some *serious* side effects to Guardasil... but Ontario Health is pumping like mad to have everyone injected. Yes, I know there is an indicated correlation between HPV & bladder cancer or infertility... but, being a BAD disease doesn't make GARDASIL® a GOOD healthcare plan... especially rolled out to *everyone* with so few years of research...

Just a few years ago, we were told 'only healthcare workers, the aged or immunologically compromised' should get the 'flu' shot... now *EVERYBODY* should? that's convenient for BigPharma, isn't it?

gotta ask yourself... how many provincial politicians & mandarins have invested their futures into BigPharma stock? How many supporters of politicians work for BigPharma or are invested in the outcome of high stock performance?

so... who is guarding the chickenhouse?
10 Things You Might Not Know About Gardasil

Toronto Public Health is offering the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine

free of charge to Grade 8 females at school-based vaccination clinics. HPV is a common virus that can cause cancer of the cervix and genital warts.

This is a new program funded by the provincial government. The HPV vaccination program is voluntary and students will not be suspended from school if they do not receive the vaccine. It is publicly funded only at school-based clinics to Grade 8 females.
News Release:
HPV vaccine program to protect young women against cervical cancer (PDF file size 18KB) - September 7, 2007
Backgrounder
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Program for Grade 8 Girls (PDF file size 16KB) - September 7, 2007
Resources for Teachers
HPV Questions and Answers (PDF file size 53KB)
HPV Powerpoint presentation (PDF file size 199KB). Also available as a handout (PDF file size 25KB)

NVIC Calls Merck & FDA "Not Completely Honest" Re: Pre-adolescent HPV Vaccine Safety

Thursday, 29 June 2006 The FDA appears to have learned nothing from recent catastrophic disasters. The disasters are due to the agency's approval of unsafe drugs--such as Merck's anti-inflammatory drug, Vioxx.

The FDA hastily approved Merck's HPV vaccine which is designed to prevent cervical cancer and genital warts in sexually active women. However, the vaccine has not been proven safe and effective in clinical trials. The trials are being criticized for using a placebo containing aluminum adjuvant (whose adverse reaction profile makes the vaccine appear safer than it is), rather than using a non-reactive saline solution polacebo.

Here's how: the vaccine triggered adverse event reports in 90% of the test subjects within 15 days--hardly an indication of safety. However, the controversial placebo formula triggered 85% adverse event reports. How does the FDA know what long-term adverse effects the vaccine might produce? Have we learned nothing from the disastrous DES effects on the daughters of women who took the hormone during pregnancy triggering cancer and genital deformaties. See: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/DES .

The HPV vaccine is being promoted for use in girls 9-15 years of age.

National Vaccine Information Center president, Barbara Loe Fisher, says "Merck's pre and post-licensure marketing strategy has positioned mass use of this vaccine by pre-teens as a morality play in order to avoid talking about the flawed science they used to get it licensed. This is not just about teenagers having sex, it is also about whether Gardasil has been proven safe and effective for little girls."

When the science becomes politicized--whether from the conservative right or from the liberal left--don't trust ANYTHING that's being said.

Absent scientific evidence demonstrating the safety of the HPV vaccine, there is no guarantee that this will not prove to be a disaster for the next generation.
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Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav, 212-595-8974
veracare@ahrp.org

CorpWatch : Merck's Murky Dealings: HPV Vaccine Lobby Backfires.

"It used to be that funding for research was provided by government," says Canavan, the Maine legislator. "But now it comes from private corporations that stand to gain and the information can be - I won't say skewed - but made to work for the company."

What is clearly not working for Merck are the controversies around Gardasil that have derailed corporate plan to make vaccination mandatory and to capture the market before Glaxo releases its own vaccine.

The last few years have not gone smoothly for one of the world's biggest drug companies. On September 30, 2004, after it became known that Vioxx was doubling the rate of heart attacks and strokes, Merck withdrew the painkiller and saw its stock plummet nearly 27 percent. Taking the drug off the market wiped out $2.5 billion in annual sales.

In 2005, Merck's new chief executive officer Richard Clark announced a plan to cut the company's world-wide work force by 11 percent or 7,000 jobs and to close or sell five of its manufacturing facilities. The company's 2005 sales were down four percent and its net income had fallen by 20 percent. The company's financial woes will not be eased by the fact that its patent for cholesterol drug Zocor, with $5 billion in sales, expired in 2006, while patents on other best selling drugs, including, Folsom and Cozaar, are nearing expiration.

Merck's also announced on February 14 that it had signed an agreement that essentially brings to a close the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) examination of the company for the period 1993-2001. Under the agreement, the final net cash cost to Merck is expected to be approximately $2.3 billion which covers federal tax, net interest after federal tax deductions and penalties." Merck, noted the "reasonableness" of the IRS settlement and said that it had reserved the funds so the payment would not impact 2007 earnings.

"As CEO, my priorities are clear," says Clark, "meeting the needs of patients and building shareholder value."

Those priorities are particularly hard to juggle given America's love-hate relationship with pharmaceuticals. In 2004, 82 percent of the U.S. population reported that they had taken at least one prescription drug, over-the-counter medication, or dietary supplement in the previous week; 30 percent of respondents reported using five or more, according to a study by the Sloan Epidemiology Center at Boston University. Even kids are consuming drugs in great quantities. In 2005, according to an analysis performed by Medco Health Solutions for the New York Times, "approximately 1.6 million U.S. teenagers and children (almost 300,000 of whom were under 10) were given at least two psychiatric drugs in combination."

At the same time as they are popping pills, Americans are widely distrustful of a pharmaceutical industry that has a long record of marketing wonder drugs with misleading advertising and dangerous side-effects. A 2007 health poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that fewer than 18 percent of Americans "say they can trust what pharmaceutical companies say in their ads most of the time." Some 70 percent "agree that drug companies put profits ahead of people."

By choosing to promote making Gardasil mandatory, Merck fell deep into the chasm between the public's desire to see drugs as the cure for all ills and its profound skepticism that pharmaceutical companies put the public's interests before profits.

"When we lose trust in company like pharmaceuticals or a group like Women in Government," said Canavan from her home in Maine, "we start to become suspicious about everything. We need to have public dialogue. The point is not that the vaccine is bad, but that the public agenda has all been company-driven."...

Its all about good parenting & the safety of the children... isn't it?
There is a rather effective means to protecting one's daughters from cervical warts.
USE A FREAKING CONDOM. a little communication & sex education goes a LOOONG way, right? I guess jabbing a few needles with longterm effects & dubious side-effect research is infinitely easier on the parenting effort...
Opulent Ethics: feeding the Beast

"Correctional Services?": thoughts on "The Cult That Spawned the Tough-Love Teen Industry"

Comments

[deBeauxOs]

Awesome blog ... errr, media collage. Overwhelming in fact so I better start re-reading it and taking notes and pursuing those links.

The reference to 'The Constant Gardener' (book, not movie) is apt and relevant.

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Editor's Note:

thank you! kind words are heartily appreciated... there's little love found in trying to put out information that runs counter-MSM...

~BBPN

[Herbinator]

You tell'em.

My daughter will abstain from said shot.
Thank you.

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Editor's Note:

I'm flattered, thank you.

yet, sickeningly, Ontarians & other Canadians are *paying* for an entire generation of women to receive these shots...

... a gift that may well go on giving for decades to come...

luckily! we have HARPER! yeah! he's gonna keep us safe from those scary drugs!!

*groan*

~BBPN