Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Safe or Sorry?

“Shannon Nelson, an 18-year-old athlete from outside of Chicago, wonders about the vaccine. She got the HPV shot at the same time as two other vaccines. Within a week, she developed Guillian-Barre Syndrome (GBS), a mysterious autoimmune disorder that causes muscle weakness and paralysis. In Nelson's case, she developed paralysis that lasted for over two months. ‘ I couldn't sit up in bed, I could not lift up my arms,’ she recalls. ‘I appear recovered but I'm not.’”. – CTV.ca

I have a serious concern about the clinical trials of Gardasil. 1200 girls aged 9-15 years of age were enrolled in the clinical trials of Gardasil. Of these girls only ONE HUNDRED were nine years old, with the youngest being followed for a mere 18 months. And yet, the vaccine was deemed "safe", with minimal side effects. These one hundred girls represent the target age group for the HPV Vaccination. Shouldn’t there be clinical trials a little more comprehensive than this? How effective are the results of a clinical trial on 100 girls, when in reality, the vaccine is being given across the country to girls of different biological backgrounds on different medications. Who knows how it will affect nine year old over the other, in order to discover this, testing needs to look at more than 100 girls!
A policy of mass vaccinations has been approved based on this basic, short term trial. Who knows what long term effects may come along with Gardasil in the years to come for girls and women who have received the vaccine. No one will know until they actually happen because the clinical trials did not look at long term effects! Anyone remember Depo Vera (the birth control shot)? It had clinical trials too, and after thousands of girls got sucked into the idea they realized it decreased bone density in women (which is already a concern for many).
It makes me wonder when we are going to find out what effects Gardasil is going to have on girls in the years to come. Low bone density, birth defects, deaths? Who knows, because it hasn’t been tested over long periods of time. It is absurd that based on the weak data available, a policy of mass vaccinations has been developed for girls in Canada. Why are the girls always the guinea pigs? All “new” methods of birth control are developed for females; where are the products being using males as the guinea pigs??

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