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“In 2012, when she was 20 years old, Rochelle was so injured by Merck’s Gardasil vaccine that she had to give up her pre-med studies. Ten years later, her mother was injured by Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, and shortly after, her grandmother died just a few weeks after getting Pfizer’s vaccine.”
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The law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman filed a lawsuit Wednesday against pharmaceutical giant Merck on behalf of a young man, Zachariah Otto, who was allegedly injured by Gardasil, Merck’s HPV vaccine. The complaint seeks damages, including punitive damages, for negligence; strict liability (failure to warn); strict liability (manufacturing defect); breach of warranty; common law fraud; and violation of California’s unfair competition law. Continue reading article…
By Norma Erickson
December 4, 2013, the Katie Couric Show aired several segments focusing on The HPV Vaccine Controversy. Her guests included Emily Tarsell, Rosemary and Lauren Mathis, Dr. Diane Harper and Dr. Mallika Marshall.
In response to the ensuing firestorm of criticism the show generated, Katie Couric invited Dr. Anne Schuchat, Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, to do a segment for Friday’s show in order to “make sure people understand the facts about this vaccine and human papillomavirus (HPV).”
Dr. Schuchat’s answers to Katie Couric’s questions can be viewed in the video above, or on HPV Vaccine Conversation Continued. During the interview Dr. Schuchat was asked about the safety of HPV vaccines, she stated:
“As the leader of the CDC Immunization Program, I am really committed to a very strong safety monitoring system. What I can say is more than 57 million doses have been used and with all the tests and systems that we track, we aren’t finding any concerning problems.”
According to the CDC, VAERS data are monitored to:
Ostensibly, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is the first line of defense when monitoring vaccine safety. Despite the obvious limitations of drawing concrete conclusions from VAERS data, it does provide an excellent tool for recognizing potential safety signals, red flags if you will, when looking at a specific vaccine’s safety profile.
This article will look at a few items which would raise red flags for the average medical consumer. Perhaps Dr. Schuchat can explain why they are not ‘concerning problems’ for the leader of the CDC Immunization Program.
According to the Rare Diseases Act of 2002, any disease or condition that affects less than 200,000 people in the United States is classified as a rare disease. There are currently more than 6,000 known rare diseases. One could safely assume that if one or more of these rare diseases began to show up in the VAERS database with any regularity it would certainly constitute a safety signal – a signal demanding further investigation.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of VAERS data that should at the very least raise a few eyebrows.
According to the NIH, National Institute of Health, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is characterized by a brief but widespread attack of inflammation in the brain and spinal cord that damages myelin – the protective covering of nerve fibers. ADEM often follows viral or bacterial infections, or less often, vaccination for measles, mumps, or rubella.
In other words, ADEM is a known side effect of some vaccines. It is listed as a rare disease in both the United States and Europe. Examine the following chart showing the VAERS reports of ADEM after all vaccines used in the United States each year from May 1997 through May 2013.
One would think an 8,100% average per anum increase in reports of this rare condition after the introduction of HPV vaccines would be a huge red flag. Apparently, that is not the case for Dr. Schuchat despite the fact that ADEM is a known adverse effect of some vaccines.
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is one of a group of rare disorders that have orthostatic intolerance (OI) as their primary symptom (when an excessively reduced volume of blood returns to the heart after an individual stands up from a lying down position). In POTS, orthostatic intolerance causes lightheadedness or fainting, and there is also a rapid increase in heartbeat.
The following chart shows VAERS reports of POTS and related symptoms after HPV vaccines compared to the number of reports filed after all other FDA approved vaccines.
There are over 80 vaccines FDA approved for use in the United States. If all vaccines were equally safe, HPV vaccines should account for around 3% of the total reports filed with VAERS. As you can clearly see, depending upon the symptom, HPV vaccines account for a disproportionate percentage of the reports filed pertaining to POTS and related symptoms. What is wrong with this picture?
Still – no ‘concerning problems’ Dr. Schuchat? Not with an average increase of 137% in reports filed per year?
Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) occurs when immune system cells produce antibodies that destroy platelets, which are necessary for normal blood clotting. The antibodies attach to the platelets. The spleen destroys the platelets that carry the antibodies.
The chart below illustrates the average number of reports of purpura on an annual basis for all vaccines listed in the VAERS database. There has been a 68% increase in the average number of purpura cases reported annually since the introduction of HPV vaccines in 2006.
Seriously, Dr. Schuchat, wouldn’t this fall under the heading of potential unusual vaccine adverse events which the VAERS system is designed to alert the members of your staff to investigate?
Infertility in the United States is no small problem. The CDC estimates that 10.9% of women ages 15 to 44 experience fertility problems. This estimate was made from data collected from 2006-2010. Since this is not a rare disorder, one would think that any signal which indicated a tendency to exacerbate the problem would be of particular concern.
OK, the chart above shows a substantial increase of the reports of fertility problems, a 790% increase in the annual average to be exact beginning in 2007. What could have caused such an increase? Does it have anything to do with the introduction of HPV vaccines in mid-2006?
Let’s compare the percentage of infertility reports after HPV vaccines to infertility problems reported after all other vaccines in the VAERS database from May 2007 to November 2013.
Dr. Schuchat, how can 2 vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, account for such a large percentage of infertility reports to VAERS for such an extended period of time without being a concern?
Once again, Dr. Schuchat, how can two vaccines account for such a large percentage of the VAERS database? Why is this not a matter of concern?
Perhaps the mission statement for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Illness says it all:
“The mission of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) is the prevention of disease, disability, and death through immunization and by control of respiratory and related diseases.”
The amount of disease, disability, and death potentially caused by Gardasil and Cervarix are obviously not a ‘concerning problem’ for those who are supposed to be monitoring HPV vaccine safety at the CDC.
Thank you, Dr. Schuchat, for making that perfectly clear to medical consumers in the United States and around the world.
For more revealing graphs, click here.
By Saskia from Devon, UK
Cervarix changed my life: now I would never be able to manage the sort of day I took in my stride as a thirteen year old. I can’t even remember what a day with energy feels like.
Before receiving the HPV vaccine at 14, I was an active, mostly healthy child. As we lived some distance away from my school, I had fairly long days: I would leave the house at 7.30 am and return at 5.30 pm, but always came back with lots of energy. I enjoyed walking, swimming, horseback riding etc. after school. No matter how long my day was, I certainly never experienced the complete exhaustion I felt after the Cervarix vaccine.
The difference in energy was particularly noticeable because it happened immediately. The day I got the first HPV vaccination Cervarix, on the 28th September 2009, I came home feeling sick and incredibly tired and had to go straight to bed. The next day at school was a struggle because I felt nauseous and so low on energy, and once again I ‘crashed’ when I got home and had to go straight to sleep.
This happened every day for a week or so. My mum rang up the local health service to talk to them, but they said this wasn’t a possible side effect of the vaccine and there was no way of registering any side effects.
Eventually mum managed to get through to a central line where she could register the nausea and fatigue I was experiencing. They also told her it wasn’t a known side effect of Cervarix and claimed there was no connection.
The same symptoms happened after the other two injections of Cervarix (on 13th November 2009 and 24th April 2010) but each time it got worse. After the second vaccination I experienced the same sickness and exhaustion but it lasted for a fortnight.
After the third vaccination I honestly don’t think life was ever really ‘normal’ again. The fatigue became more and more constant. I struggled with low energy levels at school, would fall asleep at lunchtime and on the way home and often had to go to bed as soon as I got back.
The constant exhaustion became very limiting. I had to stop swimming which I had done at a competitive level and greatly enjoyed. I also had to turn down a World Challenge Trip to Kenya despite having started fundraising because I realized I simply would not have the energy to walk each day. My fatigue now is sometimes completely debilitating and I spend much of my time in bed. I have become used to having to turn opportunities down because of it.
Not long after the third injection, the chest pain started. The first time it happened I was in a class at school and suddenly got a crushing pressure and pain on my left side. I felt faint and dizzy and was in so much pain I could barely talk.
I ended up going to a local A&E where they did an ECG and found that I had a very fast and slightly abnormal heart-rate accompanying the pain and so I was transferred by ambulance to Torbay Hospital. The pain eventually subsided and further ECGs came back normal and so I was discharged.
This was the start of an incredibly scary and difficult journey to getting diagnosed. I have experienced debilitating, severe and intermittent chest pain ever since. It has taken years and lots of time and energy to get a diagnosis.
The sickness and nausea is also something which started with the vaccine and has never really gone away. I spend most of the day feeling very queasy, sometimes to the point that I cannot eat anything. Despite trying many different anti-nausea medicines, I have yet to find one that works. I also started getting dizzy and fainting, particularly on standing or exertion, which has been very unpleasant and scary. Recently, my fainting has become significantly worse and now happens almost daily which is frightening and dangerous, and has led to several concussions.
Along with the horrible, debilitating symptoms of fatigue, nausea, chest pain, dizziness, fainting and gastrointestinal issues which are all linked, has come the struggle to get a diagnosis and adequate medical support.
I have been in and out of doctors’ appointments and hospitals since I was thirteen. There have been countless blood tests, ECGs and scans. Both my parents and I have had to spend so much time and energy researching and pushing for some help.
Despite the severity of my symptoms, they were initially dismissed as anxiety, then food intolerances, and later, because nothing was structurally wrong with my heart, the medical support became virtually non-existent and I was even told it was all in my head. One example of this treatment is when I went to a GP to ask for something to help with my frequent vomiting and was instead given the name of a book about ‘psychosomatic illness’. I can’t begin to describe how painful that is.
It was 4 years after my symptoms had started that I was finally put on a week-long heart monitor. This monitor picked up severe spikes in my heart rate. It showed times when my heart rate was quickly accelerating from 70 bpm to 180 bpm. These ‘spikes’ coincided with when I was experiencing chest pain or fainting. I was given a probable diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) which has since been confirmed by a specialist in Derriford Hospital following further testing.
I am now nineteen years old and despite finally being on various medication to help manage my symptoms, I am severely limited by my ill-health. I have no energy and often had to miss lectures, supervisions, social events and various opportunities because I am either too fatigued, too faint, or in too much pain to participate. Recently my ill-health has forced me into the incredibly difficult decision to drop out of my second year at Cambridge University, because studying has become impossible.
I have gone from enjoying exercise and loving long walks on the moors to sometimes fainting after a short flight of stairs, being reliant on taxis, and having to spend much of my time in bed.
I have gone from being a normal teenager to a disabled one, and it seems to have all been triggered by the vaccine.
Since the Cervarix injections and since developing POTS I have lost count of how many times I have been in hospital, experienced severe chest pain, fainted, missed important opportunities, and been sick.
In fact, I have actually forgotten what having a healthy day feels like as I am never symptom-free anymore.
This article in its entirety is compliments of www.sanevax.org
Saskia, I am so sorry you are going through this painful time. It is a shame that the medical establishment has let you down in so many ways and the psychosomatic illness suggestion just adds insult to injury. Just a lazy, weak cop-out. It is so much more pleasant when a doctor just admits when they do not know what is wrong.
I have good news for you, there are doctors that are experienced in this area, and will take you under their wing. Distance is not an issue in most instances. The team at SaneVax Inc. has wonderful contacts, and I have some as well within the Featured Doctors menu option on my blog. There are many others that have received relief and healing from Cervarix and Gardasil injuries.
I hope you are soon to be able to receive better care and to resume your studies at Cambridge University.
You can tell you are strong and patient, and I know that as you remember who you are, that you will continue to be guided on this healing path.
Here is a musical gift that I hope lifts your spirits at this time. My ten year-old daughter was watching me work and I asked her which musical group I should pick a song from. She felt this would be a good group. Hang in there, your friend jen.