Do you remember how Gardasil freaks me out? Mark and I aren't getting the 13-year-old vaccinated with the HPV vaccine or anything like it. Granted, this is for slightly different reasons. Mark doesn't want to have any type of sex talk with Ara except the "graduate college with honors before you get pregnant" scary Daddy one, and I simply don't agree with using teen girls as guinea pigs for a vaccine that barely had to pass a sniff test.It frustrates me the way the manufacturers can do their own privately-funded studies and assure the FDA of a drug's safety. Obviously, the government certainly doesn't have the finances to fork over for all of these studies. But this Gardasil stuff smells fishy...like the early birth control pill. We'll just test this for safety on the new users!
I wrote a blog a while back on the adverse effects from Gardasil. Since then, I've discovered numerous other reports of bad reactions to this vaccine.
I Rant Because I Love.
And now, Merck, the maker of Gardasil, is being ordered by the FDA to add a few more precautions to the warning label: fainting, tonic-clonic (jerking) movements, and seizure-like activity.
"Seizure-like"?! What is that?! If there was a warning on my birth control pill (yes, I use them until Mark gets the snip; we're just so darn fertile, the two of us!) that said I might have "pregnancy-like" symptoms, I would probably turn to another method or not take them at all.
Again: "seizure-like"? If someone is jerking around from a vaccine, might we reconsider this method of controlling HPV spread?
Also, with these adverse reactions, the FDA states,
FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continue to receive reports of traumatic injuries of individuals fainting and falling after receiving Gardasil. Some who fainted have had serious injuries from falling, which have often occurred while still in the healthcare provider’s office, and other fainting episodes resulted in motor vehicle accidents.
The prescription? Stay at the doctor's office for 15 minutes after receiving the vaccine.
In a blog I wrote for Eat. Drink. Better. (a cousin of Eco Child's Play), I pointed out that the FDA was going after General Mills, saying that their claim that whole grains can lower cholesterol caused Cheerios to be a drug. Although that sounds like a nice April Fool's joke, sadly it was not. In the comments, a poster replied that,
It’s not like the FDA is 3 guys in their mom’s basement.
I should hope not. But if it's not, why does this agency keep trying to convince me and other wary consumers of this?
I do appreciate that the FDA ordered Merck to include this labeling. But it seems like too little, too late. And it also seems that the FDA probably had the power to stop use of this vaccine until it's fully studied (we're not even sure yet how long the shot will last, or if girls will need boosters eventually). But they did not require this course of action.
Got seizures? Hang at the doctor's office for a bit so they can what...watch you have one? That's the prescription: lay them down until they get through the fainting spell or seizure.
Because don't worry; these are non-epileptic seizures. Although that should put parent consumers at ease, that makes me more worried.
There is no thimerosol in Gardasil. As you know, thimerosol is approximately 50 percent mercury, which is a known neurotoxin. So if it's not that additive messing with the brain and causing "non-epileptic seizures", which one is it?
If my child does not have epilepsy, a very serious disorder in its own right, why should she have a seizure after receiving a vaccination?
Doesn't a seizure signal something happening in the brain?
Might we want to investigate this further before mandating it for our girls? Our future? Our precious, precocious ones?
Argh. There are far too many questions that must be answered about Gardasil.
If you didn't click on the FDA link above, here it is again.
Image: yanivba on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
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