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Hi All, This is my first post so I hope I do it right. Anyway, below is a letter I sent to our state rep. here in Nevada, Dina Titus. As far as I am concerned there never is much info out to the public about the drugs the FDA approves. I have been studying this for some time and as a teacher I can't help sharing info. This is a long read with good info. Titus sponsored a bill to mainstream this drug here.................................................
Hi Dina, I must tell you I am very disappointed to see you support this bill. I am enclosing this information from a doctor who has 31 years of clinical practice with woman's issues. You may enjoy her site for your own health issues, www.drerika.com Thanks for you time and I hope maybe this information will change your mind. Peace, Diana Smith 702-876-1926
These are two seperate pieces from Dr. Erika
January,07
I’ve been inundated with questions about the new HPV vaccine. Most e-mails and calls come from mothers of young girls who are confused about what to do with their daughters. It seems that the pediatricians have picked up the drug companies’ baton and are out to immunize every young girl in sight.
Should you vaccinate or shouldn’t you?
I know the CDC in conjunction with the American Cancer Society have been quite diligent about providing FAQs and other informational pamphlets on the topic of the HPV vaccine, its use and recommendations.
However complete and detailed these materials are, keep in mind the final decision is a personal decision and in the case of the HPV vaccine, it falls all in the lap of the parents.
As a parent and a physician I’d like to give you some insight into my own understanding and position on this issue. As a parent, my daughters are 22 and 29 and thus I need not make this difficult decision but as a caring and honest physician I can promise you that my advice is given to you as I would for my own girls.
Relevant Background
* HPV is considered as common as the common cold virus by most practicing physicians in the US. It is that common and that innocuous.
* There are more than 100 strains of HPV
* 60 cause regular non-genital skin warts
* 40 cause genital warts.
* 6 million people get infected yearly with this virus that we know of
* 70% of those infected are clear of any sign of the infection within a 1 year
* 90% have no sign of infection by 2 years.
* HPV viruses that are associated with a high incidence of cancer (by the way, no one really knows the true statistics of infected healthy people without immune system problems) include HPV 16, 18, 31, 35, 45, 51, 52, 58 and others.
* You cannot distinguish the type of HPV causing a particular infection with normal blood testing
* The HPV vaccine was approved by the FDA a couple of months ago so it has no track record of safety or long term side-effect evaluation
* The vaccine protects from 2 high risk HPV viruses-#16 and 18 which cause 70 % of cervical cancers and HPV #6 and 11, the strains that cause 90% of genital warts
We do not know anything about the vaccine’s long term effectiveness or dangers in general and in specific on American girls. Before its approval by the FDA the vaccine was tested in other countries around the world for only 5 years.
Now that you are a little less scared about being non-compliant by keeping your daughter away from the vaccination, let’s look at a couple of more issues.
So who is at highest risk of getting cervical cancer caused by HPV virus?
Young women- teen to early twenties with multiple sex partners who lack access to preventive and regular Pap smears and routine check-ups.
Let me make it a bit clearer: if my daughters were in the HPV immunizable age group I would not have them immunized with the HPV vaccine.
The reason: Once they became sexually active my daughters started going for regular Pap smears. Pap smears diagnose HPV related problem early and the gynecologist then treats the problem and prevents it from becoming cancer.
Cervical cancer is a disease created by lack of preventive care.
If our girls have routine Pap smears once they are sexually active, they are okay.
If your daughter may not have access to consistent preventive care, if you cannot afford it or you are not sure you can help your daughter get into a supportive and protective health environment, then protect her by immunizing her.
If your daughters are going to get routine PAP smears once they are sexually active,
if they are going to be supported and given encouragement and example to help them develop self-esteem and self-confidence, they will become self- protective and care enough about their bodies and their health not to lead risky lifestyles that expose them to STDs or other abusive situations. In this case they will not need the HPV vaccine.
Besides my concerns with the long term effect of the HPV vaccine I have one last nagging concern I want to share with you.
What message are we giving our daughters if we immunize them at the age of 9 against a sexually transmitted disease? Are we giving them a false sense of security and implicit encouragement for reckless sexual behavior?
You make that decision and don’t let the doctor, the school nurse, the drug rep or your neighbor tell you what to do!
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February 07
Dear Community,
Gov. Rick Perry (R.) of Texas this month signed an order mandating that schoolgirls in his state be given the HPV vaccine. Legislators in other states are pushing similar measures. This is an act of aggression against our daughters who are becoming victims of pharmaceutical greed.
Before you allow your girls to be vaccinated, consider the following information “they” DON"T tell you about this vaccine to be given three different times into the bodies of your daughters...
The HPV vaccine has only been tested for five years on possibly as low as 100,000 ten year old girls in Africa. No one knows what will happen to those girls or our girls in the five, 10 or 20 years after the vaccine has been administered. The only science here is the real live testing about to be done on our daughters, who are technically, like the African ten year olds, the guinea pigs. Remember Lyme vaccine? What happened to that cure-all? It killed a few people and was quickly taken off the market.
Merck pharmaceutical is the manufacturer of Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. Merck is investing millions in increased lobbying efforts to get state agencies to make Gardasil mandatory. It stands to make billions from the vaccine.
In Texas, Merck’s lobbying effort was doubled and the results paid off big time. Gov. Perry issued an executive order to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to vaccinate all 170,000 girls entering sixth grade as of September 2008 at a cost of $60 million. The Texas legislature has no authority to repeal the order.
A spokesman for the governor, Robert Black, discounted news accounts that Merck’s high-powered lobbyist in Austin, Mike Toomey — chief of staff for Mr. Perry from 2002 to 2004 as well as for a Republican predecessor, William P. Clements — might have swayed his former boss. “I don’t put a whole lot of stock in that talk,” Mr. Black said. The governor’s order, he said, “protects human health; it was the right thing to do.”
According to a recent Associated Press story, Merck could generate billions in sales if Gardasil - at $360 for the three-shot regimen - were made mandatory across the country.
Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws elsewhere. It has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the nation.
Gov. Perry also has ties to Women in Government. His current chief of staff's mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.
The governor also received $6,000 from Merck's political action committee during his re-election campaign.
A top official from Merck's vaccine division sits on Women in Government's business council, and many of the bills around the country have been introduced by members of Women in Government.
The practice of medicine and pharmacy is legislated at the state level and, as you can see from what is happening in Texas, you need to be careful about the politicians you vote for and their affiliations.
The Center for Disease Control approved Gardasil last June. But remember: the CDC is a Federal Government agency with the mandate to help public health. Public health applies to the population at large and it has an enormously beneficial role in the case of underprivileged populations without access to preventive and routine health care. Anything the CDC recommends is offered to us through the prism of large populations and epidemiologic data.
Before you agree to allow Merck and their lobby to dictate your child’s future, please stop and ask a few questions. If your child needs the vaccine, do it because you believe it is safe and right for your daughter. If not, don’t do it
DrErika
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