(Vaccines, Gardasil & more) Lawrence Solomon: First, do no harm (National Post)

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Decent article, sadly in need of enlightened

comments from knowledgeable folks who actually

know about problems associated with vaccines,...

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Lawrence : First, do no harm

Posted: May 22, 2009, 7:54 PM by Ron Nurwisah

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Science

By Lawrence

Those who question the safety of vaccines are

being unfairly attacked. Vaccines do both harm and good

Vaccines do good and they do harm. They also

arouse passions among those who would see no

harm. And intolerance, as seen in reactions to

Oprah Winfrey and McCarthy for giving voice to vaccine skeptics.

Here’s the Vancouver Sun, in an article that

focuses on celebrities raising doubts about the

safety of vaccinating children: while “scientists

are working around the clock to develop

[vaccines], another group of people are working

just as hard at promoting skepticism of vaccines

.... with the Internet’s unparalleled ability to

spread rumours, innuendo and conspiracy theories,

and with celebrities taking a leading role in the

anti-vaccinationist movement, stories about the

damage allegedly caused by vaccines are receiving more publicity than ever.”

Or Adler in the conservative National

Review Online: “Oprah Winfrey has decided to

promote the career ­ and by extension, the

dangerous and lunatic ravings ­ of

professional-bimbo-turned-anti-vaccine-activist

McCarthy. Set aside any culture war

concerns, the promotion of McCarthy’s views at

such a level is a real, tangible threat to the

physical health and well-being of our children.”

Or my own National Post, in an editorial entitled

“The danger of an anti-vaccine panic”: “It seems

there is no brand of New Age nonsense Oprah

Winfrey will not peddle on her show, but getting

involved with anti-vaccination sentiment crosses a hugely important line.”

The vaccinationists have good arguments. The

preponderance of scientific studies generally

absolves vaccines. Where the welfare of children

is involved, the state can legitimately intervene

when irresponsible parents endanger their

offspring. And where contagious diseases are

involved, the public is entitled to protection.

The vaccinationist’s bottom line: While vaccines

may not be risk free, the benefit to society of

controlling and potentially eradicating disease

is immense compared to the miniscule risk

vaccination may attach to individuals.

But the anti-vaccinationists also have good

arguments. Peer-reviewed vaccination studies,

because they tend to be funded by the

pharmaceutical industry, are suspect. The

pro-vaccine bias of government funding agencies

gives short shrift to studies proposed by

skeptics. Even when dissenting peer-reviewed

studies do somehow get funded and published,

including in prestigious scientific journals, the

studies tend to be dismissed and the authors

personally attacked. The anti-vaccinationist’s

bottom line: You vaccinate your children on the

recommendations of the medical authorities if you

wish; I’ll exercise my right to choose what’s

best for my child by weighing the benefits and

the risks of particular vaccines.

The concern of parents did not materialize in a

vacuum. By the tens of thousands, children who

were healthy the day before their vaccination

suffered serious adverse reactions, sometimes

death, soon after their vaccination. Medical

authorities don’t publicize these reactions to

the general public and GPs don’t publicize them

to their patients ­ to the contrary, they tend to

discount alarm from parents of children they have

vaccinated, reassuring the parents that there is

no relationship between the vaccination they

administered and their child’s new condition.

But parents often don’t buy it ­ when their

children die, or behave strangely, immediately

after a vaccine, they understandably wonder about

a possible link. Neither do parents buy the

greater good argument ­ that they must place

their own child’s health at risk in order to

protect the children of others. Finally, if

vaccines are so safe, why did pharmaceutical

companies seek and obtain exemptions from

liability, why did governments need to establish

funds to compensate victims of

vaccinations-gone-bad, and why do pro-vaccine

authorities dismiss their critics and act as if they have something to hide?

Consider Gardasil, Merck’s HPV vaccine,

recommended for mass vaccination for girls as

young as 9 (HPV is the most common

sexually-transmitted infection). Before hitting

the U.S. market in 2006 with the enthusiastic

recommendation of governmental health

authorities, Merck studied Gardasil’s side

effects in only 1200 girls aged 16 and younger,

and for less than two years. The girls that died

or were inflicted with serious health problems

during its pre-licensing clinical trials, Merck concluded, were coincidences.

By the end of 2008, U.S. victims or their parents

reported some 12,000 adverse events from

Gardasil, including 32 deaths, to the U.S.

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (at least

10 times as many adverse events are estimated to

have gone unreported). The Centers for Disease

Control, a U.S. government agency, reacting to

alarm from parents of victims, published a report

vindicating the drug, but without allowing

critics to assess the report by releasing the raw

data, or even the names of the principal investigators performing the study.

In response, the National Vaccine Information

Center, a U.S. non-profit agency, compared

Gardasil’s adverse events to those reported for

Menactra, a vaccine administered to similar

populations, and found that “Gardasil is

associated with at least twice as many Emergency

Room visit reports; four times more Death

reports; five times more “Did Not Recover”

reports; and seven times more “Disabled”

reports,” plus at least four times as many

Cardiac Arrest reports, six times as many

Fainting reports, at least three times as many

Syncope reports, at least four times as many

Lupus reports, at least 15 times as many Stroke

reports, at least 33 times as many Thrombosis

reports and at least five times as many Vasculitis reports, among others.

These results, directly at odds with those of the

Centers for Disease Control, need to be

addressed. It speaks volumes to the nature of the

vaccination debate that vaccinationists have not

provided the courtesy of a response.

Financial Post

• Lawrence is executive director of Urban

Renaissance Institute.

<http://www.urban-renaissance.org/>www.urban-renaissance.org.

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines - http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm

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