| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| jacquia |
Posted - 12/10/2008 : 11:33:58
http://www.osadvertiser.co.uk/news/ormskirk-news/2008/12/04/maghull-schoolgirl-paralysed-after-mystery-illness-80904-22406589/
A SCHOOLGIRL was left paralysed after being struck down by a mystery illness.
Ashleigh Cave, 12, has been bed-bound in Alder Hey children’s hospital since October after collapsing during a family trip to London.
The Year 8 pupil at Maghull’s Maricourt Catholic high school fell ill with a severe headache within minutes of having her HPV cervical cancer jab.
She developed nausea before collapsing two days later and being taken into hospital, where she has remained ever since.
Ashleigh is currently undergoing intensive physiotherapy and hydro- therapy to help her regain movement in her legs.
Doctors ruled out a link between the jab and Ashleigh’s current condition, saying she demonstrated “no pathological reaction” to her vaccination.
They also ruled out a link between Ashleigh’s current condition and a pre-existing genetic condition she has, known as Noonan’s syndrome, which causes heart abnormalities and sight and hearing problems.
Ashleigh’s mum Cheryl, 37, of Old Roan, said: “I went to pick Ashleigh up from school and she was complaining of a headache and crying.
“She had a doctor’s appointment, which I took her to, and when we got home, she went straight to bed.
“The following day, she was very weak, had dizzy spells and kept saying her body was aching, so I kept her off school.
“The next day, we were due to go and see friends in London. Ashleigh said she was OK to travel, but she collapsed on the train and we had to take her a nearby hospital, where they kept her in for 24 hours.
“We took her home and her condition worsened. She could not walk or support her own weight and was admitted to Alder Hey. She has not walked since.”
Since she was admitted to hospital on October 24, Ashleigh, who is on the hospital’s neuro-medical ward, has undergone intensive physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, CT and MRI scans.
Mrs Cave added: “Ashleigh is angry she does not know what is going on.
“I take my hat off to her and her determination she will walk again.”
Dr Andrew Curran, consultant paediatric neurologist at Alder Hey, said: “Ashleigh is at present undergoing detailed and complex investigations.
“She is receiving a full input from all appropriate clinical staff, including a detailed rehabilitation programme to support her recovery.
“Ashleigh’s problems are not related to Noonan’s syndrome and I can say with complete certainty she is demonstrating no pathological reaction to her vaccination.”
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/echo-letters/2008/12/09/
Plea for HPV info
MY 12-year-old daughter Ashleigh was featured in the ECHO (Dec 4), after suffering an "unknown illness" which has left her paralysed, very soon after having her first HPV vaccine injection.
Sheer desperation led me to search the internet to see if this drastic reaction has happened before.
We, her family, have been absolutely gobsmacked by the volume and severity of officially reported reactions, recorded in the US and others, where the programme has been running around 12-18 months, longer than here in the UK.
Here the programme started only in August, Ashleigh had her injection on October 15, and we wonder if she is the only young lady to have had a reaction.
We would be very grateful if readers would share their experiences regarding the vaccine with us, as all searches refer to the US.
We only wish to raise awareness of the possible side effects.
Cheryl and Ashleigh Cave, Old Roan
To date these are the adverse reactions of Cervarix
Total number of reports received 623
Total number of suspected reactions 1416
Estimated number of doses administered unavailable to date
Source - MHRA Cervarix Safety Analysis Dec 4th 2008.
PDF Available with total breakdown of adverse reactions.
Napoleon once said: "There are two ways of moving men--interest or fear". Probably the most effective way of cajoling the public into submitting to vaccination is the employment of 'scare tactics'. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Suba |
Posted - 11/26/2009 : 21:26:32
The list of vaccine damage and death gets longer and longer:
http://www.kkrasnowwaterman.com/blog/tabid/2962/bid/1691/HPV-Vaccine-fainting-seizures-and-other-side-effects.aspx
CERVARIX
A case from the uk my 13 year old daughter had her last hpv jab in may and she fainted within 30 mins she was ambulanced to a&e (emergency room us)the doctors said the faint was due to being scared of the injection . since may daily faints occured always complaining of tingling in the tops of her fingers and in her left leg her faints where now happing 4 times a day she spent every day in hospital . the staff at the hospital would not listen to any connection from the hpv jab to her condition implying she was making it up for attention and it was all in her head refering her to a therapist.then a reprive or so we thought for about 2-3 weeks during school summer holidays we thought that maybe she had suffered a reaction to the jab along with a virus until she went back to school extreme fatigue headaches back to 3-4 and upwards faints daily when on one of our daily trips to the hospital staff were unwilling to treat her i made it quite clear to the doctors that i was not bringing her to the a&e every day that the school were calling for an ambulance due to the fact she had fainted for 8 mins and would not respond to the school nurse,this lead to a couple of days on the childrens ward where they confined her to bed so she would not faint.ct scan was clear eeg was clear tilt table test clear therapist happy with her state of mind she was a very popular girl at school doing well with high grades and loved being in the school sports team no family worries comes from loving stable family one of 4 children so not so a panicky mother who has dealt with brusies and sickness for twenty years.since mid september she has become much worse faints prolonged tiredness so much that anormal weekend involves nothing more than sleeping and she is now having seizures daily and has not lost control of her bladder during these seizures which the doctors insist that are still not happing although have been witnessed by teachers first aiderd and the school nurse and on one occasion the whole of her school year which needless to say the most frightning and embrassing seizure to date. doctors are asking for her to be filmed when she is having a seizure the school are at this point going through hours of cctv footage to check . as a mother who is just about holding it together watching her daughter being stolen bit by bit in constant pain the goverment slogan for the hpv jab was ARM YOURSELF AGAINST CANCER SO MOTHERS PLEASE ARM YOURSELVES WITH THE FACTS ABOUT THIS INJECTION BEFORE THEY STEAL YOUR DAUGHTER.if your child has been affected you must report it so other parents can make an informed decision on the facts of real cases and not the lies told by drug companies. |
| jacquia |
Posted - 11/26/2009 : 11:55:51
Posted yesterday on Jabs, another HPV vaccine victim!
My daughter of 14 had the first jab some 8 weeks ago now. 30 hours after the jab she woke up with a total loss of voice and an extremely sore throat. Doctors said it was not linked but she a severe case of Laryingitis ? After 4 weeks her voice is now at a whisper but she has no energy, very lethargic. Our doctors has done two lots of blood tests on my daughter to find no underlying illness, however what they did discover was that her white blood cell count was low , she was now suseptible to infection as her body could not fight viruses normally.We are waiting to see a consultant, but I am very sceptical over the outcome.Just a little back ground on my daughter. 14 years old, competetive swimmer 30,000m per week extremely fit young lady, top class,top set in all subjects at school.Hugh social life. Now, cant swim, frightened,vunerable and feels isolated.
C Davies
Napoleon once said: "There are two ways of moving men--interest or fear". Probably the most effective way of cajoling the public into submitting to vaccination is the employment of 'scare tactics'. |
| Rosemary |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 16:02:06
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt#
Gardasil Researcher Drops A Bombshell
Harper: Controversal Drug Will Do Little To Reduce Cervical Cancer Rates
By Susan Brinkmann, For The Bulletin
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15.
Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. Although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, participants said they came away convinced the vaccine should not be received.
“I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all,” said Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the Population Research Institute.
Dr. Harper began her remarks by explaining that 70 percent of all HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment within a year. Within two years, the number climbs to 90 percent. Of the remaining 10 percent of HPV infections, only half will develop into cervical cancer, which leaves little need for the vaccine.
She went on to surprise the audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is already so low that “even if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”
There will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, and even then, the decrease will be minimal.
Apparently, conventional treatment and preventative measures are already cutting the cervical cancer rate by four percent a year. At this rate, in 60 years, there will be a 91.4 percent decline just with current treatment. Even if 70 percent of women get the shot and required boosters over the same time period, which is highly unlikely, Harper says Gardasil still could not claim to do as much as traditional care is already doing.
Dr. Harper, who also serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization, further undercut the case for mass vaccination by saying that “four out of five women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.”
Ms. Robinson said she could not help but wonder, “If this is the case, then why vaccinate at all? But from the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought was occurring to them.”
However, at this point, Dr. Harper dropped an even bigger bombshell on the audience when she announced that, “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years.”
Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, studied only a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.
This is not the first time Dr. Harper revealed the fact that Merck never tested Gardasil for safety in young girls. During a 2007 interview with KPC News.com, she said giving the vaccine to girls as young as 11 years-old “is a great big public health experiment.”
At the time, which was at the height of Merck’s controversial drive to have the vaccine mandated in schools, Dr. Harper remained steadfastly opposed to the idea and said she had been trying for months to convince major television and print media about her concerns, “but no one will print it.”
“It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11 to 12 year old girls,” she said at the time. “There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue.”
When asked why she was speaking out, she said: “I want to be able to sleep with myself when I go to bed at night.”
Since the drug’s introduction in 2006, the public has been learning many of these facts the hard way. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse reactions include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.
Dr. Harper also participated in the research on Glaxo-Smith-Kline’s version of the drug, Cervarix, currently in use in the UK but not yet approved here. Since the government began administering the vaccine to school-aged girls last year, more than 2,000 patients reported some kind of adverse reaction including nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, convulsions, seizures and hyperventilation. Several reported multiple reactions, with 4,602 suspected side-effects recorded in total. The most tragic case involved a 14 year-old girl who dropped dead in the corridor of her school an hour after receiving the vaccination.
The outspoken researcher also weighed in last month on a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that raised questions about the safety of the vaccine, saying bluntly: "The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer."
Ms. Robinson said she respects Dr. Harper’s candor. “I think she’s a scientist, a researcher, and she’s genuine enough a scientist to be open about the risks. I respect that in her.”
However, she failed to make the case for Gardasil. “For me, it was hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.”
|
| tracey |
Posted - 10/25/2009 : 23:33:11
sorry mum in melt down anyone had appendix removed and end to problems just clutching at straws right now please email any information on the next phase i might have to come up against |
| Rosemary |
Posted - 10/19/2009 : 08:20:37
2 ALS Cases May Be Linked to Gardasil Vaccine
Researchers Believe Cervical Cancer Vaccine Could Be Linked to Cases of Lou Gehrig's Disease
By Charlene Laino
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Oct. 16, 2009 (Baltimore) -- Researchers believe that there may be a link between a vaccine against cervical cancer and a rapidly progressive, fatal disease in two young women.
Both the timing of the symptoms and autopsy results “suggest a link between” the Gardasil vaccine and the fatal cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, says Catherine Lomen-Hoerth, MD, director of the ALS Center at University of California San Francisco Medical Center.
With only two confirmed cases, “we don’t know for sure if it’s coincidence or if they’re connected [to the vaccine],” she tells WebMD. “We hope that by raising awareness, we will become aware of any other cases."
Pam Eisele, a spokeswoman for Merck & Co., which makes the vaccine, says the company cannot comment specifically on the cases as it has not seen the data.
“However, after carefully reviewing all the information available to us about reported adverse events, including reports of deaths, Merck does not believe these events have been caused by Gardasil,” she says.
The vaccine has been given to more than 7 million girls and young women nationwide.
Gardasil and ALS: Jenny’s Story
The tragic story of one of the girls, Jenny Tetlock, is chronicled on “Jenny’s Journey,” a web site created by her parents to publicize her case and get others with similar symptoms to come forward. http://jenjensfamil y.blogspot. com/
The first sign that something was wrong was when 14-year-old Jenny tripped on a hurdle that others in her class cleared easily, according to the web site. That was just months after her third and final booster Gardasil shot, Lomen-Hoerth says.
The disease rapidly progressed; both her legs, and then her arms became weak, Lomen-Hoerth continues. Jenny began to limp and had trouble gripping objects. She felt pins and needles in her feet, and her muscles atrophied, she tells WebMD.
Within a year, Jenny was paralyzed, a quadriplegic breathing only with the help of life support. She died shortly afterward, Lomen-Hoerth says.
Throughout the course of her illness, Jenny’s mind was as sharp as ever, she adds.
The other patient, a 20-year-old, developed similar symptoms within four months of her first Gardasil shot, Lomen-Hoerth says. The disease followed a similar course, and the girl died 28 months later.
Rapidly Progressive Course
In addition to the short time span between vaccination and the onset of symptoms, several other factors made the researchers suspect a link to Gardasil vaccination, Lomen-Hoerth says.
In both young women, the disease progressed more quickly than typical for young ALS patients, she says.
Additionally, at autopsy, “we were surprised that the spinal cord was so inflammatory. That is very different from what we normally see in ALS,” she says.
The pathology features “all support a temporal association between [the illness] and vaccination,” Lomen-Hoerth says.
She spoke at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
Because it is extremely rare, affecting just one in 2-3 million young people, there are very few studies of juvenile ALS, Lomen-Hoerth says.
Her team plans further study comparing the symptoms and pathological features of young adults with ALS who got the Gardasil vaccine to those who didn’t get the shots. “If the features are identical, then we’ll know [the vaccine] is not the cause,” Lomen-Hoerth says.
In the meantime, she and colleagues have met with scientists from the FDA and CDC to scour their adverse-event database, called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), for any other reports linking ALS to Gardasil or other vaccinations. “So far, we haven’t found any,” she says.
Merck is also continuing to work with the CDC and FDA to monitor any adverse events that may have been caused by the vaccine, according to Eisele.
Yadollah Harati, MD, a neurologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says the findings raise a red flag.
The fact that “the postmortem studies show distinct immunological features different from what is typical of ALS” suggest an association between vaccination and ALS, he says.
“I will be asking any of my young patients with ALS whether they received the Gardasil vaccine,” he tells WebMD. “I have one 20-year old ALS patient, and we didn’t think to ask that.”
SOURCES
134th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association, Baltimore, Oct. 11-14, 2009.
Catherine Lomen-Hoerth, MD, director, ALS Center, University of California San Francisco Medical Center.
Pam Eisele, Merck & Co.
Yadollah Harati, MD, department of neurology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.
|
| jabsadmin |
Posted - 10/12/2009 : 17:02:30
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/709718
Death After Cervarix Propels HPV Vaccination Into Headlines Again
Authors and Disclosures
September 30, 2009 (updated October 1, 2009) — The sudden death of a 14-year-old British girl shortly after she received Cervarix, a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) to prevent cervical cancer, hit headlines worldwide yesterday. Today, however, the death is being reported as unlikely to have been related to the vaccine. The next day, a postmortem revealed that the girl had a large tumor in her chest cavity.
This is not the first time that a death has been reported after HPV vaccination; many of the other cases have been reported after inoculation with Gardasil in the United States, although there has been no proof of causality. Some of these deaths have also received wide media attention, and last month a mother who lost her daughter after HPV vaccination testified before a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meeting.
In the latest incident, Natalie Morton, of Coventry in the United Kingdom, died on the same day that she received the vaccine at school as part of a national HPV vaccination program. She collapsed less than 2 hours after the injection, which was the first dose of a planned 3-dose course.
A preliminary postmortem revealed that she had "a serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death," according to Caron Grainger, MD, joint director of public health in Coventry.
"We are awaiting further test results. However, indications are that it is most unlikely that the vaccination was the cause of death," Dr. Grainger said in a statement.
In response to the news of the death, several health authorities in the United Kingdom announced that they were temporarily suspending their HPV vaccination programs.
The Department of Health said all vaccines from the same batch (HPV1 Cervarix AHP VA04 3BB) would be quarantined as a precaution.
"No link can be made between the death and the vaccine until all the facts are known and a postmortem takes place," the Department wrote in a letter to health professionals. "As a purely precautionary measure, it is important that all stocks of Cervarix vaccine from the above batch are quarantined until the above incident has been fully investigated."
Further details were revealed the following day at a hearing at Coventry Magistrates' Court. Deputy coroner Louise Hunt said the postmortem revealed a large tumor that had "heavily infiltrated" the heart and had extended into the left lung. A pathologist told the inquest that the condition was "so severe that death could have arisen at any point," according to a report on BBC News.
Cervarix in UK, But Gardasil Elsewhere
The UK national program of HPV vaccination began last year, offering the vaccine through schools to all girls in the 12- to 13-year-old age range. A catch-up program for older girls, up to 18 years, was launched just recently, with the aim of covering all girls under 18 years by 2011. An estimated 1.4 million girls in the United Kingdom have already received the vaccine.
The United Kingdom chose to use Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, for its national program, whereas many other countries — including the United States and Australia — chose to use Gardasil from Merck & Co. In fact, Cervarix is not available in the United States, and may not be for some time yet, it now appears.
Yesterday, the FDA announced that it was postponing its decision on approval of Cervarix, saying that it needed more time to consider the data, even though an FDA advisory committee meeting recently voted overwhelmingly for approval, as previously reported by Medscape Oncology.
The UK decision to choose Cervarix and not Gardasil has been questioned in the British press, with newspapers pointing out that the reasons behind the choice were never revealed, but is widely speculated to have been based on cost, with Cervarix being cheaper.
But the 2 vaccines also differ from each other in a key aspect.
Cervarix protects against 2 types of HPV virus (types 16 and 18), which together account for about 70% of all cervical cancer. Gardasil also protects against these, but in addition offers protection against HPV types 6 and 11, which cause genital warts. This extra activity means that Gardasil is also indicated for the prevention of genital warts in girls and women, and could be used for this indication in boys and men (it was recommended for approval for this use at the recent FDA advisory committee meeting).
However, the main purpose behind the development of these vaccines was to prevent cervical cancer, and for this indication, Cervarix is the better of the 2 vaccines, according to expert Diane Harper, MD, from the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine.
Dr. Harper has been involved in clinical trials with both vaccines, and was approached by Medscape Oncology for comment. As previously reported, Dr. Harper said that Cervarix was longer lasting, resulted in higher antibody titers, and offered wider cross protection against other HPV types than Gardasil.
But Dr. Harper has also been very vocal in emphasizing that these vaccines are not the only way to protect against cervical cancer, and she has repeatedly stressed that even when they are used, it remains vital to screen for cervical cancer with regular Pap tests.
She has joined in with questions over the benefit–risk analysis of HPV vaccination that have been raised, most recently in an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), as reported by Medscape Oncology.
That August 19 issue of JAMA also published details of adverse events that have been reported with Gardasil during its 2.5 years on the market (JAMA. 2009;302:750-757). These reports were made to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which is operated jointly by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The authors emphasized that a report of an adverse event does not necessarily mean there is a causal link. The paper noted that 12,424 reports of adverse events had been received, of which 772 (6.2%) were for serious adverse events, including 32 deaths.
This is a sobering reality.
In the United States, the death rate from cervical cancer (3 of 100,000 women, according to statistics from the CDC) is currently similar to the rate of reported serious adverse events from Gardasil (3.4 of 100,000 doses distributed), Dr. Harper pointed out. "This is a sobering reality," she said. "Would a parent accept such a rate of serious adverse events if the same cancer prevention can occur with continued Pap screening? Is there any acceptable level of risk of serious adverse events, including death, to prevent genital warts?"
A debate about the HPV vaccine is running on Medscape's Green Mountain Doc blog, written by Katharine Hikel, MD, who specializes in writing about women's health issues. Her post, entitled "'One Less Sucker' — Gardasil," criticized the marketing of this product, questioned whether it was medically necessary, and highlighted its adverse event rate.
"The rush-to-market approach for this questionable product, with billions spent on promotion, has completely [over-ridden] good judgment, critical analysis, and clear thinking on the part of providers," Dr. Hikel writes. She asserts that this has put millions of women "needlessly at risk."
In contrast, many cervical cancer specialists have spoken up in favor of HPV vaccination, as previously reported by Medscape Oncology. Maurie Markman, MD, professor of gynecologic medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and an editorial advisor to Medscape Oncology, has repeatedly emphasized the benefits of the vaccine and the unique opportunity that it offers for protection from cervical cancer. He has spoken reassuringly about the safety of the vaccine, most recently in his videoblog "How Safe Is the HPV Vaccine?"
This view was echoed recently by the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists (SOG), which said that HPV vaccination represented a "paradigm-shifting prevention strategy for cervical cancer." In a statement released to the recent FDA advisory committee meeting, the SOG said: "The public-health value of the protection afforded by HPV vaccination overwhelmingly outweighs the self-limiting local side effects and even the rare but more serious effects that may or may not be vaccine-related."
***
Dr. Harper reports having received honoraria from Merck & Co and GlaxoSmithKline, and institutions at which she has worked have received funding from both companies to support clinical trials on HPV vaccines. Dr. Markman reports having received grants for educational activities from Eli Lilly and serving as an advisor or consultant for Genentech, Celgene Corporation, Tibotec, and Boehringer Ingelheim.
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| jabsadmin |
Posted - 10/12/2009 : 16:53:43
SUNDAY EXPRESS
11 October 2009
Page 2:
Cervarix - correction
Last Sunday we incorrectly suggested that the cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix could be as deadly as cervical cancer and that the vaccine is ineffective.
We now accept that there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case and that Cervarix in fact provides protection against the viruses that cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers.
We are happy to set the record straight and apologise for causing undue alarm to all those women and teenage girls considering vaccination against cervical cancer.
|
| Thinker |
Posted - 10/11/2009 : 18:24:45
As I sure you all want to have full revelation of all the facts, you'll want to know Dr Diane Harper has complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the comments wrongly attributed to her in the article above:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/oct/10/ben-goldacre-cervical-cancer-jab
I completely agree with Ben Goldacre's comments that a reasoned debate is currently not possible given the biased hysteria that greets all these stories on vaccination! |
| jabsadmin |
Posted - 10/10/2009 : 22:37:12
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2669541/Parents-fears-on-controversial-cervical-cancer-jab.html
The Scottish Sun
There ARE side-effects that we’re NOT being told about
Published: 06 Oct 2009
MUMS are fighting back over the controversial cervical cancer jab being dished out to young Scots schoolgirls.
There are increasing concerns over the drug following the death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton last week just an HOUR after receiving the HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine Cervarix.
A post mortem revealed her death was down to an underlying medical condition - a malignant tumour of the chest.
But yesterday we told how 18-year-old Stacey Jones suffered brain damage just days after receiving the jab, with her family fearing the vaccine may have been the cause.
Feature writer SHELLEY MATHESON spoke to two concerned mums who have said 'no' to immunisation...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WORRIED mum Kirstene Glynn was appalled when she began researching the HPV vaccine Cervarix.
The 33-year-old, from Musselburgh, East Lothian, was already wary of letting eldest daughter Hayley, 15, receive the new cancer drug.
Kirstene, who works as a carer, was concerned that not enough was known about the possible side effects.
She spent hours trawling the internet conducting her own research and was so horrified by what she found, she begged Hayley not to be immunised.
Kirstene said: "Hayley was meant to have the jag two weeks ago but she never got it.
"This was because of all the adverse side-effects we're NOT being told about by the Government, ones I'm having to find out about on the internet.
"Hayley's 15-and-a-half and she's old enough to make that decision.
"She had a look at the evidence for herself and was upset by the things she found.
"She made her own decision, she just turned round and said 'Nope'.
"But I've now read that girls as young as 12 can have the final say, even if their parents don't want them to have the jab.
"A 12-year-old is not mature enough to make that sort of decision."
The caring mum has never prevented any of her daughters from receiving immunisations before.
She said: "I feel the benefits of being immunised against measles, mumps and rubella do outweigh the risks."
But following the cases of Natalie Morton and Stacey Jones, she is more convinced than ever that none of her daughters will ever receive the vaccine.
Kirstene and husband Chris, 32, came up against some opposition from her daughter's school.
She added: "I got a phone call from the nurse who was doing it at the school and I had more information than she did.
"She couldn't really fight her argument because everything she said to me, I just fought back."
Kirstene admits her biggest concern is the lack of information available on the effects the vaccine can have on girls with underlying medical conditions.
And she's outraged the fact the drug contains aluminium, which can be damaging to the body's cells, has been ignored by focusing on the jab's lack of mercury.
The mum-of-three added: "Girls can be born with cervical cancer cells - it's a virus that can actually be passed onto you. You don't have to be sexually active.
"It tends to be that a lot of girls have underlying conditions, which can be diabetes or anything really, and it affects their immune system."
Kirstene is worried what the effects of the relatively unknown drug will have on teens in later life.
She blasted: "They don't know how long it is going to last. It's not a lifetime jag.
"Cervarix is a not a cure for cervical cancer.
"We do not know what the consequences are going to be in 20 years' time because they have only done trials for the past four or five years.
"Will your daughter be left infertile?"
***
It's our decision'
Carer Louise Breasley was prepared to let her only child have the notorious vaccine until workmate Kirstene told her about the shocking information she had uncovered on the internet.
Within minutes of reading about the side effects of the jab, the 33-year-old put her foot down.
Daughter Claire, 14, still wanted to go ahead with the vaccination so as not to be the odd one out at school in Musselburgh - but was soon convinced when her worried mum passed on Kirstene's research.
Louise said: "After reading the information I got from the school I was quite happy to go ahead with it until I started looking into a bit more.
"It was Kirstene who made me aware and I just got put off straight away with the things I found."
But Louise was furious when Claire came home from school and told her a teacher had called her stupid for not having it.
She blasted: "One teacher told her that she was silly for not getting it because all girls her age get it. I was shocked, it is our decision to make."
The concerned mum believes the information given out by the Government has been lax and the girls are being used as guinea pigs.
She hit out: "They don't know how long it is going to last for. We don't know enough about it."
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| jabsadmin |
Posted - 10/10/2009 : 22:19:01
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6860078.ece
Sunday Times
October 4, 2009
What has cervical cancer drug done to our girls?
After one child’s death, we talk to parents who blame the vaccination for serious illnesses in their daughters
Daniel Foggo, Rosie Millard
A year ago Rebecca Ramagge was a happy, sporty teenager, a high achiever at school and a tournament-level tennis player. Today she’s a 13-year-old crippled with chronic fatigue syndrome who has been laid up in bed for seven months and needs her mother’s help to tackle such basic tasks as brushing her hair and getting dressed.
Last September Rebecca, along with the rest of the girls in her class at St Bede’s school in Redhill, Surrey, received the first of three inoculations of Cervarix, the cervical cancer vaccine. As part of a nationwide programme the jab is being offered to every girl in the UK aged 12 to 13 to try to prevent the spread of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, which is linked to most cases of cervical cancer. By 2011 every girl under 18 will have been offered the jab.
A few days later Rebecca “had quite severe joint pains”, says her mother Clare who, with her husband John, runs a car sales business in Reigate. “We took her to see doctors, who asked me if anything different had happened in her life. The only thing that had changed was that she had had the jab.”
After a second inoculation in November she felt worse and by March she was on crutches. Nevertheless, she was given a third dose that month. Within hours she was “extremely ill”, says Clare: “She hasn’t been to school for seven months. I have to help her do most things, sit up in bed, brush her teeth, tend to all her basic needs. I have become her carer. My husband is having to run the business alone.”
Clare is now taking part in a class action suit against Glaxo Smith Kline, the maker of Cervarix, along with 10 other sets of parents whose daughters have suffered adverse reactions to the vaccine since the programme began last autumn.
“We are being contacted every day by new people,” says Peter Todd, a solicitor of Hodge Jones and Allen in London, who is handling the case. “The basis of the claim is under the Consumer Protection Act, implemented after the thalidomide scandal. Consumers are entitled to redress if they suffered injury as a result of a defective product and this turns on a reasonable expectation of safety. As the manufacturers themselves give a big long list of adverse effects, presumably they accept that reactions will occur.”
Cervarix burst into the headlines last week when Natalie Mort, 14, died two hours after being given the jab at the Blue Coat Church of England school in Coventry. After a post-mortem examination revealed that she had a previously undetected tumour in her chest which a Home Office pathologist described as “so severe that death could have arisen at any point”, health officials in the city declared the vaccination programme would resume.
Glaxo Smith Kline, it seemed, was off the hook. Yet privately some National Health Service doctors are of the view that the injection might well have been a catalyst. Certainly Clare Ramagge says that consultants who have examined Rebecca have indicated that the vaccination was a trigger for her collapse. “It is being made clear that in children who have got any condition that could be triggered by this jab, it will trigger it,” says Clare, who points out that the consent letter Rebecca had brought home from school mentioned only the most common side effects.
Julie Jones, another of the parents who has joined the class action, thinks the vaccine is to blame for her daughter’s deterioration. On May 16, Stacey, 18, went to the local sports centre in Ringsfield, West Midlands, for her third and final inoculation. It was the last day Julie would see her daughter behaving normally.
“That evening she went out with my sister and brother-in-law to a party. She was very agitated all night. The next night she had a panic attack. She kept saying she couldn’t breathe, she was hyperventilating.” Two days later she suffered an epileptic fit and was admitted to hospital. “They told us it was sleep deprivation. But the seizures continued. We took her straight back and she was admitted for eight weeks.”
It is thought Stacey is suffering from encephalitis. She is now in a brain rehabilitation unit in Birmingham. “To me it’s like looking at a shell,” says Julie. “She has a sort of zombie look in her eyes. She walks with her head down and her arms pulled in. It’s turned our lives around.”
Paige Brennan, 13, from Telford, remains seriously ill at Birmingham children’s hospital, six months after suffering brain damage within five days of being given the last vaccination in her course of three. She has been unable to speak or feed without a tube and has only recently been trying to communicate.
Her parents say they were not made aware of any side effects associated with Cervarix. If they had been, they would never have allowed her to have it.
“She had nothing wrong with her before. She was healthy. Soon after having this injection she collapsed with a seizure,” says her mother Margaret Brennan, 46. “I’m there every day at the hospital. It can take two years for the brain to recover, so all we can do right now is hope.”
Such stories are certain to alarm parents who otherwise might have been satisfied that their daughters were being properly protected against cervical cancer in later years. The death of Jade Goody, the reality TV star, led to a rise in young women wishing to have the vaccine. Now Natalie Morton’s death — and emerging news of the other claims — is throwing that into doubt.
As with the MMR jab, Cervarix is not a one-shot treatment. It has to be administered on three separate occasions over six months. So parents whose daughters have had the first injection must now have two more moments of worry as their daughters go forward in the scheme.
Doctors want to vaccinate as many young girls as possible before they become sexually active, so they will be protected during their teenage years. It is thought the vaccine is effective for 10 years, thus potentially protecting women until they are 22 or 23, after which time sexual habits typically tend to calm down.
Should parents be worried? Jim Boddington, a GP in Hackney, east London, says that in his view Cervarix is a safe bet. “It’s been widely trialled and produced excellent data,” he says. “When you roll out a programme of vaccinations to millions, a minority will develop symptoms. Some would have developed those symptoms anyway and people are very quick to make causal affiliations.”
This spring the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency showed that of the 700,000 schoolgirls vaccinated last year, more than 1,300 had officially reported an adverse reaction, ranging from convulsions and nausea to pain in the joints. That is a percentage of 0.2%. Peter Todd says he has seen slightly higher figures reported and acknowledges that the risk seems “relatively low” but points out that if you were one of the hundreds affected, you might feel differently.
Certainly some are now deciding it is a risk too far. Kirstene Glynn, 33, a community carer from Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, will not let her daughter Hayley, 15, have the vaccine: “I refused because when I found out online about the vaccine, all I found out was horrendous. And the more I discovered, the worse it got. There are all these side effects which we are not being told about.” Such as? “Seizures. Migraine. Muscle pain. Obviously in Natalie Morton’s case she was killed by her tumour, but in my view you shouldn’t give it to children with underlying conditions. If she hadn’t had the jab she might be alive now.”
This is not to say that Kirstene is anti-vaccines per se. Her three daughters have all had the MMR jab “because the benefits outweigh the risk. And you are more likely to catch measles than cervical cancer, aren’t you? I have talked to Hayley about her sexual health and she knows all about condoms and having regular smears. You still have to have smears, you know, whether you have been inoculated or not”.
Yet Kirstene had her daughter at the age of 17. Surely she should know about the dangers posed for young women by having sex early: “I wouldn’t recommend having a child at 17 and I certainly don’t want it for Hayley. She’s a clever girl and I want her to go to university. But girls are going to do what they are going to do, aren’t they? They just do what they want.”
Maybe that’s the problem, says Richard Millard, a Hampshire GP. “There is a view that simply inoculating young women is taking the line of least resistance, a sort of liberal agenda which has been peddled since the 1960s with pretty disastrous effects,” he says. “We have more teenage pregnancies than anywhere else in Europe, and the amount of STD [sexually transmitted disease] in this country now is frankly out of control.”
Why not rethink the whole landscape of teenage sex, he suggests: “There are plenty of other things one could do which would reduce the risk of contracting cervical cancer, such as encouraging young women to start sexual activity later and discouraging promiscuity. A giant vaccination programme is a sort of tacit agreement that sexual activity for teenage girls is all right.”
Julie Jones is in no doubt. Asked whether she would advise parents to let their daughter have the jab, she says: “I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. I want the programme to be stopped in schools. They are only kids and they are being ushered into a scheme like cattle. And they are too young. It is ridiculous to expect that young girls of 12 or 13 will be having sex anyway. They are young and very vulnerable.”
Vaccine figures
By 2011 all girls under 18 will have been offered the Cervarix vaccine
1.4m children have taken part in the vaccination programme since it began last September
The vaccine is delivered in three doses over six months nThe immunisation of 12- and 13-year-olds costs taxpayers £100m a year; the catch-up campaign for girls under 18 costs £200m a year
The vaccine protects against the two strains of HPV (16 and 18) that cause cervical cancer in seven out of 10 cases
Each year there are 899 deaths in the UK from cancer of the cervix
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| MissyC1 |
Posted - 10/06/2009 : 15:11:50
Rosiec,
I would not be surprised. You are forgetting that these a BIG organisations and a lot of money involved. Anything is possible. Chilling thought indeed. |
| Seonaid |
Posted - 10/05/2009 : 20:29:13
Hi Rosiec - I hope not. But you never know nowadays. Remember David Kelly?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-397256/Why-I-believe-David-Kellys-death-murder-MP.html
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| Janet |
Posted - 10/04/2009 : 21:42:43
Teenage girl left brain-damaged after receiving cervical cancer jab
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:14 PM on 04th October 2009
Comments (15)
A teenage girl has been left brain-damaged after suffering epileptic seizures just days after being given the controversial cervical cancer jab.
Stacey Jones, 18, suffered her first seizure in March when she was 17, days after she had the Cervarix injection.
In the following weeks she had several more fits, causing such severe brain injury that she had to be admitted to a rehabilitation unit, where she is relearning simple tasks.
Stacey Jones
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the parents of the teenager, from Bilston in the West Midlands, are convinced that the vaccination caused swelling in the brain.
The swelling has been diagnosed as the cause of Stacey's neurological problems.
Mother, Julie Jones, 44, told the newspaper: 'She was such a lovely, happy-go-lucky girl, now she is just a shell.
'I really feel she has been used as a guinea pig.
'I don't think there is enough evidence that the vaccination programme is safe - this all happened days after Stacey was given the vaccine, and we don't have any other explanation for what triggered her brain injury.'
Amid growing concern among parents about the safety of the jab, drug manufacturers insist that there is no evidence to suggest that the vaccine carries any long-term side effects.
Natalie Morton
The post-mortem on 14-year-old schoolgirl Natalie Morton who died hours after having the jab found that the girl had died from a malignant tumour on her chest
This would suggest that the timing of Stacey's seizures is mere coincidence rather than being linked to the vaccine.
The post-mortem on 14-year-old Coventry schoolgirl Natalie Morton who died hours after having the jab found this week that the girl had died from a malignant tumour on her chest.
However, a leading expert who helped develop the cancer jab today told the Sunday Express that the vaccine may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it aims to prevent.
The doctor also claimed the jab would do nothing to lower the rates of cervical cancer in the UK.
Dr Diane Harper, who was involved in the clinical trials of Cervarix said the vaccine was being 'over-marketed' and parents should be warned about possible side effects.
Dr Harper, of the University of Missouri-Kansas told the newspaper she believed the risks were 'small but real'.
She said: 'All this jab will do is prevent girls getting some abnormalities associated with cervical cancer which can be treated.
'It will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all.
'Parents need to know this and that in a small number of cases there are serious side effects.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218030/Teenage-girl-left-brain-damaged-receiving-cervical-cancer-jab.html#ixzz0T0AunaKt
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| rosiec |
Posted - 10/04/2009 : 18:23:58
I tried looking for more information on the Sunday Express article on google http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22Sunday+express%22+%22Dr+Richard+Halvorsen%22&meta=&aq=f&oq= and found a forum post (scroll down to the link for "prisonplanet.com") that concerned me. They think that Dr Diane Harper needs to be protected - do people think that she might be in danger because of what she has said about vaccination? I find the idea chilling! |
| jabsadmin |
Posted - 10/04/2009 : 10:53:13
Sunday Express
JAB 'AS DEADLY AS THE CANCER'
Natalie Morton died shortly after being given a cervical cancer vaccine jab
Sunday October 4,2009
By Lucy Johnston
THE cervical cancer vaccine may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent, a leading expert who developed the drug has warned.
She also claimed the jab would do nothing to reduce the rates of cervical cancer in the UK.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Express, Dr Diane Harper, who was involved in the clinical trials of the controversial drug Cervarix, said the jab was being “over-marketed” and parents should be properly warned about the potential side effects.
Authorities in the UK should be on the alert because its sister vaccine, Gardasil, used in America, has already been associated with 32 deaths, she said.
Her comments follow the death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton, who collapsed an hour after receiving the jab at school last week.
It is highly unusual for a researcher to publicly criticise a vaccine which they helped get approved.
However, Dr Harper, who has written many of the published medical papers about the jab, is so concerned she decided to speak out.
Dr Harper, of the University of Missouri-Kansas, said she believed the risks – “small but real” – could be worse than the risk of developing cancer itself.
And she claimed: “All this jab will do is prevent girls getting some abnormalities associated with cervical cancer which can be treated. It will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all.
“Parents need to know this and that in a small number of cases there are serious side effects.”
Post mortem results last week blamed Natalie’s death on a rare cancer but Dr Richard Halvorsen, author of The Truth About Vaccines, said: “One minute Natalie is an apparently healthy girl, she has the vaccine and within two hours she is dead.
We are told she had a terrible cancer inside her that killed her but this is implausible.
“If you have cancer you have symptoms. Clearly public health doctors are desperate to turn the debate away from the vaccine as a possible cause.”
Jabs, the vaccine support group, has received details of 19 girls who have suffered serious health problems, including seizures, fatigue or joint and muscle pain, since their jabs.
The Sunday Express revealed earlier this year that some of them have launched legal action against the makers of Cervarix.
Lisa Wickendon, 13, of Chobham, Surrey, developed muscle weakness in her legs after her third dose of vaccine last March, leaving her unable to walk.
When hospital tests came back normal, doctors said her symptoms were in her mind and referred her to a mental health team.
However, a consultant psychiatrist said her mental health was sound and her symptoms had “a strong relationship to receiving the vaccine”.
Her mother Elizabeth, a secretary, said: “She couldn’t walk or see properly. She couldn’t make those things up.”
GlaxoSmith-Kline, which makes Cervarix, said: “The vaccine has been thoroughly tested. Over 1.4million doses have been administered and it is estimated will save up to 400 lives a year.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “The coroner is absolutely clear that the vaccine did not cause Natalie’s
death. I strongly urge all girls to have the vaccine when they are offered it. It has an excellent safety record.”
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