HPV and MS

ssmme · Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:50 pm Post subject: HPV and MS

Has anyone ever heard of a link between HPV and MS? My daughter is at the age to receive the HPV vaccine but I'm hesitant to give the okay. I would never have had second thoughts about it if it weren't for my ms dx.

Marcia

Uprightnbreathin · Newbie Joined: Oct 12, 2007 Posts: 8 Location: Minnesota

I have never heard of a link between the two. I have never had HPV and I have not had the vaccine for it. I have MS. I would have to say that it would be best.... this day and age, that she get the shot (my opinion). Best wishes!!

Loriyas · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:27 am Post subject:

I believe in just the opposite. My daughter is of the age to receive the vaccine and I am holding off for a while. I am waiting for longer term results. I don't want to have given her the shot and then find out I shouldn't have. I am waiting for a while. I may feel differently even in 6 months and will then arrange for her to have the vaccine. But if I do it now I can't take it back if need be.
Lori

TwistedHelix · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:12 am Post subject:

As far as I can tell, at least some of the concerns seems to centre around the use of aluminium in both the drug itself and the placebo used during the trials. It's easy to conceal an adverse reaction to the vaccine by saying, " that happens with the placebo as well – it's just the aluminium and not the vaccine". Aluminium itself, of course, is neurotoxic and has been implicated in the development of MS.
This is a press release from 2006, I don't know if it has been superseded:

MERCK'S GARDASIL VACCINE NOT PROVEN SAFE FOR LITTLE GIRLS
National Vaccine Information Center Criticizes
FDA for Fast Tracking Licensure
Washington, D.C. - The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is calling on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to just say "no" on June 29 to recommending "universal use" of Merck's Gardasil vaccine in all pre-adolescent girls. NVIC maintains that Merck's clinical trials did not prove the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine designed to prevent cervical cancer and genital warts is safe to give to young girls.
"Merck and the FDA have not been completely honest with the people about the pre-licensure clinical trials," said NVIC president Barbara Loe Fisher. "Merck's pre and post-licensure marketing strategy has positioned mass use of this vaccine by pre-teens as a morality play in order to avoid talking about the flawed science they used to get it licensed. This is not just about teenagers having sex, it is also about whether Gardasil has been proven safe and effective for little girls."
The FDA allowed Merck to use a potentially reactive aluminum containing placebo as a control for most trial participants, rather than a non-reactive saline solution placebo.[1] A reactive placebo can artificially increase the appearance of safety of an experimental drug or vaccine in a clinical trial. Gardasil contains 225 mcg of aluminum and, although aluminum adjuvants have been used in vaccines for decades, they were never tested for safety in clinical trials. Merck and the FDA did not disclose how much aluminum was in the placebo.[2]
Animal and human studies have shown that aluminum can cause nerve cell death [3] and that vaccine aluminum adjuvants can allow aluminum to enter the brain, [4 5] as well as cause inflammation at the injection site leading to chronic joint and muscle pain and fatigue. [6 7] Nearly 90 percent of Gardasil recipients and 85 percent of aluminum placebo recipients followed-up for safety reported one or more adverse events within 15 days of vaccination, particularly at the injection site.[8] Pain and swelling at injection site occurred in approximately 83 percent of Gardasil and 73 percent of aluminum placebo recipients. About 60 percent of those who got Gardasil or the aluminum placebo had systemic adverse events including headache, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, myalgia. [9 10] Gardasil recipients had more serious adverse events such as headache, gastroenteritis, appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, asthma, bronchospasm and arthritis.
"Merck and the FDA do not reveal in public documents exactly how many 9 to 15 year old girls were in the clinical trials, how many of them received hepatitis B vaccine and Gardasil simultaneously, and how many of them had serious adverse events after being injected with Gardasil or the aluminum placebo. For example, if there were less than 1,000 little girls actually injected with three doses of Gardasil, it is important to know how many had serious adverse events and how long they were followed for chronic health problems, such as juvenile arthritis."
According to the Merck product manufacturer insert, there was 1 case of juvenile arthritis, 2 cases of rheumatoid arthritis, 5 cases of arthritis, and 1 case of reactive arthritis out of 11,813 Gardasil recipients plus 1 case of lupus and 2 cases of arthritis out of 9,701 participants primarily receiving an aluminum containing placebo. Clinical trial investigators dismissed most of the 102 Gardasil and placebo associated serious adverse events, including 17 deaths, that occurred in the clinical trials as unrelated.
"There is too little long term safety and efficacy data, especially in young girls, and too little labeling information on contraindications for the CDC to recommend Gardasil for universal use, which is a signal for states to mandate it," said Fisher. "Nobody at Merck, the CDC or FDA know if the injection of Gardasil into all pre-teen girls - especially simultaneously with hepatitis B vaccine - will make some of them more likely to develop arthritis or other inflammatory autoimmune and brain disorders as teenagers and adults. With cervical cancer causing about one percent of all cancer deaths in American women due to routine pap screening, it was inappropriate for the FDA to fast track Gardasil. It is way too early to direct all young girls to get three doses of a vaccine that has not been proven safe or effective in their age group."
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), founded in 1982 by parents of vaccine injured children, has been a leading critic of one-size-fits-all mass vaccination policies and the lack of basic science research into biological mechanisms and high risk factors for vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction. As a member of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), Barbara Loe Fisher urged trials include adequate safety data on pre-adolescent children and warned against fast tracking Gardasil at the November 28-29, 2001 VRBPAC meeting .[11]
Full 2001 FDA Transcript: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/cber01.htm#Vaccines & Related Biological
For more information go to www.NVIC.org.
I don't envy you having to make a decision like this on behalf of your daughter, but I know it will be made with her best interests at heart,
Best wishes,
_________________
Dom

Loriyas · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:02 am Post subject:

Dom
Thank you so much for posting this. This exactly why I am not going forward with the vaccine at this time.

Lori

ssmme · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 12:36 pm Post subject: I think i will hold off

Thanks so much for that information. I think I will hold off for now. Hopefully, I will be able to table this one for a few more years. Maybe by then, more safety and efficacy data will surface.

In the meantime, I will be vigilantly aware of the friends (boyfriends especially) she hangs out with.

Geez, and to think I've got three more kids to go through the puberty years. I always laugh cynically when the neuro's say to avoid too much stress. It could bring on exaserbations. My life is stress. With 5 year old triplets, a pubescent 12 year old, and the pressure of running my own business where do I find time not to be living under stress.

Marcia