Harper government irresponsibly approves HPV Vaccine that causes atrocious side-effects for young girls, including cancer

The Stephen Harper Conservative minority government earlier this year made a decision to spend $300 million on a campaign to inoculate females nine to 13 against cervical cancer. Sounds like great leadership on a critical health issue doesn't it. The problem is that the decision appears to be motivated to financially support the U.S. Big Business Pharmaceutical interests that developed the vaccine. Kathleen O'Hara in the Hamilton Spectator on 26 September 2007 referred to the vaccine programme as effort to create "more guinea pigs" for a vaccine that has many reported serious health issues.

Four provinces -- Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island -- have jumped on the bandwagon, making the relatively new vaccine Gardasil by Merck Frosst available for certain ages through public vaccination programs. Other provincial governments are deliberating on the matter, along with the territories.

There have been eight documented deaths that have been linked to the cervical cancer jab.

Doctors suspect the jab, which protects against a sexually transmitted human papilloma virus that causes the cancer, may be implicated in 3,461 adverse documented reactions, including paralysis and seizures.

The American-based National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) had released in February 2007 a new analysis of the U.S. Federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports of serious health problems following HPV vaccination (Merck's GARDASIL) during the last six months of 2006. Out of the 385 individual GARDASIL adverse event reports made to VAERS, two-thirds required additional medical care and about one-third of all reports were for children 16-years-old and under, with nearly 25 percent of those children having received simultaneously one or more of the 18 vaccines that Merck did not study in combination with GARDASIL. NVIC is calling on the FDA and CDC to warn parents and doctors that GARDASIL should not be combined with other vaccines and that young girls should be monitored for at least 24 hours for syncopal (collapse/fainting) episodes that can be accompanied by seizure activity, as well as symptoms of tingling, numbness and loss of sensation in the fingers and limbs, all of which should be reported to VAERS immediately.

According to NVIC's report, a majority of GARDASIL adverse event reports to VAERS involved those who suffered fever, nausea, headache or pain; 14 percent were for syncopal episodes with or without neurological signs; and 8 percent experienced tingling, numbness and loss of sensation, facial paralysis or Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Although adverse event reports to VAERS do not prove causation, they can provide an early warning sign that a new vaccine may be causing health problems that could be important. NVIC also found that there were several VAERS reports of HPV infection, genital warts and cervical lesions after GARDASIL vaccination. It is unknown if the girls were infected with HPV before being vaccinated or if GARDASIL failed to protect them. One case of HPV infection occurred in a 22-year-old girl who had participated in a Merck GARDASIL trial in 2003 when she had shown "strong conversion to all 4 vaccine types" but "tested positive for high risk HPV" in 2006, according to the VAERS report.

A lead researcher who spent 20 years developing the vaccine for humanpapilloma virus also says the HPV vaccine is not for younger girls, and that it is "silly" for states to be mandating it for them.

Not only that, she says it's not been tested for effectiveness in younger girls, and administering the vaccine to girls as young as 9 may not even protect them at all. And, in the worst-case scenario, instead of serving to reduce the numbers of cervical cancers within 25 years, such a vaccination crusade actually could cause the numbers to go up.

"Giving it to 11-year-olds is a great big public health experiment," said Diane M. Harper, who is a scientist, physician, professor and the director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire.

"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."

Judicial Watch, a U.S. government watchdog, became concerned while noting large donations to key politicians originating from Merck. A freedom of information request from the group in May of this year discovered that during the period from June 8, 2006 -- when the vaccines received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -- to May 2007 there were 1,637 reports of adverse reactions to the HPV vaccine reported to the FDA.

The Toronto Star recently reported that Merck Frosst Canada Ltd hired public relations giant Hill & Knowlton to push the immunization strategies using some well-connected lobbyists: Ken Boessenkool, a former senior policy adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Bob Lopinski, formerly with Premier Dalton McGuinty's office; and Jason Grier, former chief of staff to Health Minister George Smitherman.

Harper's Conservative Government approved Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil in July and later announced a $300 million program to give the vaccine to girls from ages 9-13. That of course is only the beginning of what Merck likely hopes will be a much larger vaccination of all potentially sexually active women in Canada who are not already HPV infected. In August, McGuinty's Ontario Liberals, on the advice of his Health Minister George Smitherman, announced that all Grade 8 girls will have free access to Gardasil.