Authors: Freda Birrell, Chair, UK Association; Steve Hinks, Press Officer, UK Association
Who we are:
Our UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters (AHVID) was established at the beginning of 2015. Families and their daughters from the north of Scotland to the south of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have joined together to give support to each other and raise awareness of the dangers of the HPV vaccines, Cervarix and Gardasil. The primary focus of this organisation is to assure our members that they are no longer on their own and by working together we can achieve so much more. In our opinion, these vaccines have caused many serious health issues which need immediate investigation.
Our facebook group ‘Parents of daughters suffering long term side effects following HPV vaccination’ is an established group for families whose young people have suffered adverse events following vaccination. Members are from countries worldwide who give each other valuable support and comfort in times of crisis. They understand what the families are going through and they share their experiences, good and bad, giving comfort and advice to one another when required. They have become an international family doing their best to cope when the world outside ignores them. Their aim is to be there for one another.
Please see the photos of some of our family members – this only represents a small section of our association – but these are real people, real families who all share one thing in common – their daughters became ill following HPV vaccination and these illnesses have lasted for many years.
What we do:
Our aims are:
To give support to one another and raise awareness of the dangers of the HPV vaccines;
To highlight how these vaccines, in our opinion, have caused serious health issues for many girls here in the UK;
To get our governments and the medical profession to realise that thousands of girls worldwide are also suffering from post-vaccination disorders;
To reassure our members that they are no longer on their own and by working together, we can achieve greater goals and gain support;
To encourage all families to share their experiences with their MPs and meet them face to face in the hope of eventually getting an open debate on this issue in the House of Commons and in the devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland;
To highlight that UK parents are being advised by medical professionals, that in many cases, their daughters’ illnesses are either “psychosomatic” or a “coincidence” and yet these young people were fit and healthy prior to vaccination;
To establish proper in-depth investigations into why previously healthy and very active young girls are experiencing personality changes and multiple adverse health events following HPV vaccinations;
To ask that the sick girls and their parents in the UK get treated with greater respect, are believed and given the opportunity to be healed within our own National Health Service – this is not occurring at the moment;
To highlight and request the Department of Education to investigate the great loss of education which has occurred following HPV vaccination;
And to recognise that all of this affects the whole family who experience high levels of stress and in many cases financial loss since their daughters became ill following HPV vaccination.
Why we do it
Quite simple – to protect our children who have become sick following HPV vaccination and to get them made well again;
And to try and prevent other girls from being damaged in the same way as has been occurring since the HPV vaccination programme was introduced into the UK in September 2008.
To ask all families to investigate and research the HPV vaccine before giving consent – it is important they know all of the facts before they make this important decision.
Freda Birrell (Scotland) is in the Chair; Caron Ryalls (Yorkshire) is Secretary; Steve Hinks (Cumbria) is Press officer and Julie Jones (Midlands) is Political Activist.
As a result of my inquiry for the article “What you didn’t know about a doctor’s stance on the HPV vaccine,” the medical journal Lancet has now issued a correction to its publication.The correction acknowledges formerly undisclosed financial conflicts of interest between the article’s lead author and makers of the controversial human papillomavirus (HPV) cervical cancer vaccine.The article by Dr. Sharon J. B. Hanley defended the vaccine and criticized the Japanese government’s decision to stop promoting the vaccine amid concerns about injuries. It also implied patients are incorrectly blaming the HPV vaccine for unrelated ills.Hanley did not disclose…Continue to the Article Here
Sunday, July 12th Svenska Dagbladet (a Swedish newspaper) released a story giving hope to hundreds of Danish families whose lives turned upside-down when their daughters began to experience multiple new medical conditions after HPV vaccine injections. This newspaper announced the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was launching a probe into possible side effects of the highly controversial HPV vaccines. Finally, these families believed they might get some answers as to why their daughters had transformed from healthy athletic girls to mere shadows of their former selves.
The Svenska Dagbladet article went on to state:
For years, talk of possible risks and side effects from HPV vaccines was rejected by authorities, doctors and drug companies. The decision by EMA in London, which is to be presented on Monday, according to SvD’s sources, is therefore likely to create harsh reactions.
Within a few short hours, the story was confirmed by multiple other news outlets.
A Medscape article stated the EMA had started a review on human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines to ”further clarify aspects of their safety profile,” although the agency also points out that this review ’does not question that the benefits of HPV vaccines outweigh their risks.” This report also noted that the EMA would make no recommended changes in the use of HPV vaccines while the review was being conducted.
The European Medicines Agency says it has started a review of cervical cancer vaccines to see if they are linked to two rare conditions, but emphasized it hasn’t changed its recommendations for how the shots should be used.
At the request of Denmark, which has seen an increasing number of young girls suffer side effects, the European Medicines Agency said on Monday that it will take a closer look at the HPV vaccine.
The review is being carried out by EMA’s own side effects committee, PRAC, which according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet has had internal disagreements over how to handle mounting suspected evidence of medical risks connected to the vaccines.
The safety of the HPV vaccine has today been thrown into doubt as health experts launch a review of the jab amid concerns over its side-effects.
The European Medicines Agency’s probe will focus on rare reports of two conditions, complex regional pain syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome
The EMA was quick to note the review does not question that the benefits of HPV vaccines outweigh the risks.
Suddenly, parents around the world began to experience the same kind of hope those in Denmark did. Someone was finally going to listen to what they had been saying for months, sometimes years. Instead of brushing off their daughters’ (and sons’) new symptoms as psychosomatic, their children’s new medical conditions would be examined as possible side effects of the HPV vaccines they all had taken.
This 3 minute Danish news report (with English subtitles) gives an indication of how much families around the world are depending on the outcome of a serious scientific investigation.
Do these parents finally have a reason to be hopeful; or is the light they see at the end of the tunnel an oncoming train?”
What kind of ‘probe’ is the EMA going to conduct?
The documentation provided by the European Medicines Agency regarding this investigation raises many questions about the voracity of their efforts. Let’s start by taking a critical look at the press release distributed by the EMA on July 13th regarding this review.
The first two paragraphs of this press release state:
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has started a review of HPV vaccines to further clarify aspects of their safety profile. These vaccines have been used in around 72 million people worldwide and their use is expected to prevent many cases of cervical cancer (cancer of the neck of the womb) and various other cancers and conditions caused by HPV. Cervical cancer is the 4th most common cause of cancer death in women worldwide, with tens of thousands of deaths in Europe each year despite the existence of screening programmes to identify the cancer early. The review does not question that the benefits of HPV vaccines outweigh their risks.
As for all licensed medicines the safety of these vaccines is monitored by the Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC).
The following statements from the EMA press release are not strictly accurate:
Statement: These vaccines have been used in around 72 million people worldwide.
Fact: No one knows how many people have been injected with HPV vaccines because the vast majority of countries do not record administered doses. At any given time, many of the distributed doses they do keep track of may be in storage awaiting administration.
Statement: Their use is expected to prevent many cases of cervical cancer…
Fact: Note they use the words ‘expected to’ NOT ‘proven to’.
Statement: Cervical cancer is the 4th most common cause of cancer death in women worldwide,
Fact: No mention is made of the fact that over 80% of these cancer deaths occur in low to middle income countries, NOT the European Union.
Statement: …with tens of thousands of deaths in Europe each year, despite the existence of screening programmes to identify the cancer early.
Fact: There may be ‘tens of thousands’ in Europe, but for the European Union the cervical cancer mortality rate is 3.7/100,000 – MUCH lower than the rate of serious adverse events being reported worldwide after HPV vaccinations. Denmark for instance currently reports serious adverse events at a rate of 200/100,000 injected.
This is not exactly a good start if one wants to instill public confidence in the outcome of a safety investigation. How can one trust the outcome of an investigation being conducted by an agency that has so little regard for accuracy in their press releases?
The current review will look at available data with a focus on rare reports of two conditions: complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS, a chronic pain condition affecting the limbs) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS, a condition where the heart rate increases abnormally after sitting or standing up, causing symptoms such as dizziness and fainting, as well as headache, chest pain and weakness). Reports of these conditions in young women who have received an HPV vaccine have been previously considered during routine safety monitoring by the PRAC but a causal link between them and the vaccines was not established.
Both conditions can occur in non-vaccinated individuals and it is considered important to further review if the number of cases reported with HPV vaccine is greater than would be expected.
In its review the PRAC will consider the latest scientific knowledge, including any research that could help clarify the frequency of CRPS and POTS following vaccination or identify any causal link.
This section raises several questions in the mind of even the most casual observer.
How can they say these two conditions are rare before the investigation is completed?
Since the two conditions have been considered previously, have any communications been issued to medical professionals alerting them to watch for these conditions after HPV vaccines?
Why are they only looking at the frequency of CPRS/POTS following vaccination?
How can an ”expected rate” be determined without examining the frequency of CPRS/POTS in unvaccinated people of the same age group as those receiving HPV vaccines?
Since CPRS/POTS are just now being considered as a potential adverse reaction to HPV vaccines, how can evidence of a potential causal link possibly have been established?
Why were POTS and CRPS chosen for this investigation?
If one wanted to get into a truly serious discussion, they would ask why two rare, difficult to diagnose conditions were chosen to be examined instead of looking at all of the serious symptoms recipients of HPV vaccines are reporting. Is it because the symptoms of both are commonly seen in many other disorders making these two conditions difficult to diagnose?
As a matter of fact, the currently used diagnostic criteria for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CPRS) was only published in 2007. Even that set of diagnostic criteria is under review for proposed changes. How is the average medical professional supposed to make an accurate diagnosis of this disorder when the experts can’t agree on how to do so?
The same is true of POTS diagnostic criteria. Post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is not a disease, but simply a cluster of symptoms that are frequently seen together. Since POTS is not a disease, it is fair to say that POTS is caused by something else. However, figuring out what is causing the symptoms of POTS in each patient can be very difficult, and in many cases, patients and their doctors will not be able to determine the precise underlying cause. This makes it pretty convenient for the stakeholders, wouldn’t you say?
Quite frequently people live with these two conditions for years without receiving an accurate diagnosis. Could that be the reason the EMA chose these two disorders to examine?
These facts make it relatively easy to keep the number of reports low, particularly when quoting the rates against distributed doses instead of administered doses.
Where does that leave all of the HPV vaccine recipients who currently exhibit the symptoms of these two disorders but have not obtained a diagnosis yet?
Unreported with no diagnosis and consequently no treatment protocol!
Who does the EMA turn to in order to investigate these potential safety concerns?
Believe it, or not – In order to examine potential safety concerns with Gardasil/Silgard, Gardasil 9 and Cervarix the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) is going to question the Marketing Authorization Holders (MAH’s). The Marketing authorisation holders for these products are GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited, and Sanofi Pasteur MSD.
How insane can one get? These are the very organizations which stand to lose the most should a safety issue be proven regarding HPV vaccines. Does anyone in their right mind think these organizations are going to be transparent when it comes to anything that could substantially effect their bottom line?
The EMA did mention examining data, but will this data come from anyone outside the marketing authorization holders’ control?
Why did the PRAC make no mention of efforts to interview the families of those affected?
Why are they making no apparent effort to talk to physicians on the ground – the people most likely to have experience observing new medical conditions after HPV vaccine administration?
Is the PRAC going to extend their probe to include examination of peer-reviewed publications indicating possible safety concerns surrounding HPV vaccines? Better yet, how about talking to the authors of these publications?
So, what hope do thousands of affected families have?
In this particular instance, there is a great deal of hope. The EMA may have been able to conduct their investigations like this in the past. This time it will not work.
Parents of those with new medical conditions after HPV vaccine administration are not isolated and alone. They have united around the world. They do not want further clarification – they want the truth. They are watching.
Medical and scientific professionals with genuine concerns about the safety, efficacy and need for HPV vaccinations are speaking out. They are willing fight to protect the health of future generations. They are watching.
Business as usual will no longer suffice. Medical consumers around the world will accept nothing less than open, honest scientific investigations regarding HPV vaccine issues.
The families of those negatively affected by HPV vaccine use will not surrender until their children’s health issues have been properly investigated, successful treatment protocols have been designed, and mechanisms put in place to guarantee this type of medical experimentation never gets out of hand again.
Citizens of the world will no longer stand back and allow government health officials to betray the public trust!
One of the biggest promoted drugs in history, the HPV cervical cancer vaccine, is a multi-billion dollar blockbuster. But it’s also faced criticism — some of it from a scientist who helped develop it — amid concerns about safety and effectiveness
When Japan suspended proactively recommending the vaccine amid concerns over injuries, the makers, Merck (Gardasil) and GlaxoSmithKline (Cevarix), began the hard lobby.
Enter a physician who wrote a correspondence about the controversy…
