Fair Lady magazine just published a short but very useful article on HPV vaccines, with question-and-answer format commentary from a number of local experts on safety and such.
Then some loony takes them on in this piece.
My comment to that:
OK: this is a sadly under-informed and over-complicated response to a very good, simple article, with expert comments that are no way out of line with what is known to be the case about these vaccines.
Please allow me to correct a few things: in the first place, you say “Several ingredients in the two HPV vaccines are known to be a problem. One is the use of the microbe Saccharomyces cerevisiae, common yeast, as the medium in which the Gardasil antigen is developed. S. cerevisiae is known to trigger autoimmune response, as discussed recently in Yeast in Vaccines Tied to Autoimmune Diseases. Cervarix, though, was produced with a different medium, Trichoplusiani.”
Yeast is known to trigger autoimmune responses? Really? Then what about all those millions of people who have received Hepatitis B virus vaccine, also made in yeast? There is NO documented correlation with vaccination with yeast-made products and autoimmunity. NONE.
Then, Cervarix is “made in a different medium” – you obviously mean cell type, because Trichoplusia ni [note!] is a species of insect, from which the tissue-cultured cells used to make the HPV vaccine are derived. And? You have no problem with that? You shouldn’t.
Further: “The two vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, are distinctly different in another way. Gardasil contains a single adjuvant… while Cervarix utilizes a combination …These differences, since they involve the hyper-activation of the immune system and a known trigger for autoimmune disorders in only one of the vaccines, suggest that a recent study’s finding that there are no adverse effects whatsoever in either vaccine beggar belief.”
So you have a problem with the finding that there are no adverse effects BECAUSE the adjuvant regime is different? Not because of the evidence? Sorry, that isn’t very good science!
And it gets better: “Most significantly, in every clinical trial evaluating safety for both Gardasil and Cervarix, the so-called placebo groups were given injections that included an active aluminum adjuvant!
Though this is a common practice in vaccine trials, it is obviously a blatant means of biasing the results.”
So – a perfectly acceptable placebo arm in a clinical trial, with adjuvant given so that any difference would not be due to just this, means the studies are meaningless? Really?? What about the UNvaccinated groups these were compared to? ALL vaccines are associated with SOME events – and I note that YOUR piece above contains the sentence “The high proportion of adverse events reported is mainly due to the design of the study, since women were requested to report all events occurring after the vaccination; however the majority of events were mild and transient”.
You then quote – at excruciating length – a number of articles purportedly supporting your case, that can be summarised as showing that “HPV vaccination does not have a therapeutic effect in young women with pre-existing human papillomavirus infection”.
Yes? And? The two licenced HPV vaccines are PROPHYLACTIC, and were never intended to be therapeutic! It is unfortunate that the vaccines do not in fact lessen ESTABLISHED infections; however, there is plentiful evidence that they PREVENT INFECTIONS FROM BEING ESTABLISHED.
You are being alarmist and spreading falsehoods from a very shaky evidential base. You should stop doing that, or risk being shown up as being an antivax crank.
Tags: HPV
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