The New Gardasil: Is It Right For Your Daughter?

Big Pharma sells Gardasil based on fear of cervical cancer.  But do the benefits outweigh the costs? Inform yourself, find your compass, so that you can be one less woman, wishing she had only known more.

The New Gardasil

I believe in living life with no regrets. When we make decisions from a place of authenticity, when we listen to our inner compass for guidance, check our fear, then we have done the best that we could have done. If it ends up being a mistake, then look at that as an opportunity, and own it. Move on. In fact, many times, our most tragic life events lead us somewhere expansively grand.

This untethered existence is challenged by a simple fact, these days: the Pharmaceutical industry has co-opted our maternal inner compass. They, in partnership with media, have grabbed onto our natural tendency to worry about the welfare of our children, and they have tempted us with a shiny apple. Visiting again and again until we relent.

And here we create fertile soil for regret. Every day, in my office, I have women expressing poignant remorse, shame, and rage because they trusted their Pharma-pushing doctor instead of trusting themselves, trusting in the inherent potential of the body to be well, to heal, to surmount seeming obstacles. No cohort of women are more lionized than those who have lost their daughters to a vaccine promoted to save them from a disease they were never going to get. The HPV vaccine.

This issue activates my primal feminism, my perception that I am here on this earth to help guard what is sacred about women and their children. It pulls at my heartstrings. I had tears streaming down my face, watching this 5 minute video.

But, we don't have to recruit emotion to sound a blaring alarm about what is going on here.

Let's just stick to the science, shall we?

The Fear They're Selling: Cervical Cancer

What is your likelihood of developing cervical cancer? And if you do develop it, is it a death sentence?

In the marketing and licensure of the HPV vaccine, changes to cervical cells have been equated with death. This is called using a "surrogate marker" and in vaccine research, this is considered acceptable because we can't otherwise prove a non-event is attributable to an intervention. There are leaps in logic and in science inherent in this practice, that render conclusions nothing more than false marketing.

In fact, none of the HPV vaccines have ever been proven to prevent a single case of cervical cancer. Don't take my word for it, listen to what Diane Harper, one of the lead researchers for the vaccine, and a whistleblower, has to say:

"It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue. This vaccine has not been tested in little girls for efficacy. At 11, these girls don't get cervical cancer – they won't know for 25 years if they will get cervical cancer. ...To mandate now is simply to Merck's benefit, and only to Merck's benefit."

You can also consult her subsequent research that demonstrates no added protection above and beyond the Pap smear. Combined pap smear and HPV vaccination have not been demonstrated to improve outcomes above Pap screening alone, and a recent review states, "Pap screening will still be required in vaccinated women hence HPV vaccination programs are not cost-effective, and may do more harm than good, in countries where regular Pap screening and surgery has already reduced the burden of this disease."

We already have something, with no side effects, that works.

The cervical cancer diagnosis rate in the United States is 7.9/100,000. Given that only 5% of HPV infections progress to neoplasia (CIN) and that 91% of early stage cases resolve spontaneously within 36 months, with 70% of CIN 1 and 54% of CIN 2 cases doing the same within 12 months, using these pathologies as surrogate markers for cancer incidence represents a scientific shortcoming.

Built on this house of cards, and defying pre-existing FDA criteria for fast-tracked approval, Gardasil was brought to market in 6 months and is now one of our great human experiments. Several countries including Japan, France, and India have banned and/or filed criminal lawsuits about Gardasil, but, as Americans, not only are the "one less" commercials still running, but the latest and greatest version of Gardasil is now available.

Continue to Page 2