Cervical cancer is not very common in the US where only 11,000 women are diagnosed with it each year, a 1/3 of whom will die from the disease. Those numbers continue to fall every year. For the most part cervical cancer is a disease of poverty, i.e. resulting from malnutrition and a lack of access to healthcare. American women afflicted are primary the poor or those who refuse pap smears for religious or cultural reasons.
Cervical cancer is the only known sexually transmitted cancer. The virus which causes cervical cancer is called Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). There are well over 100 types of HPV known to medical science. The numerous types of HPV manifest in various ways all involving skin or mucous membranes, eg. Plantar warts, genital warts, and cervical cancer. Some estimates suggest that 95% of sexually active women and men will be infected with a sexually transmitted HPV strain in their lifetime. As with the flu virus the human body is well equipped to fight infection so long as the immune system is not compromised. In normal healthy adults, HPV is brought under control within 6-18 months of infection.
Because HPV lives in the skin and mucous membranes, the use of condoms does not prevent transmission. However, some studies show that the use of condoms limits exposure to the moister areas of the genitalia and thereby decreases the rate of transmission. The only way to insure that you are not infected with HPV is to avoid any contact with another’s genitalia or to be certain that your chosen partner has never been in contact with another’s genitalia.
So why not try to inoculate all women against HPV with the new vaccine Gardasil? (Name is a contraction of guard against squamous intraepithelial lesion.) There are several reasons why I will not have this vaccine administered to my daughters. Firstly, the study was crap. Yes, I said crap! Though it covered over 11,000 participants, those women ranged in age from 9-26 and came from divergent religious and cultural backgrounds in various nations. We should assume that several of the participants were not sexually active nor part of an at risk population because of age or cultural/religious taboos against sexual activity. Also, if any participant was sexually active prior to receiving the vaccine then she cannot be counted as part of a prevention study. Even the manufacturer of Gardasil (Merck) recognizes that there may be no benefit to women who have already been infected with the HPV strains that it targets (6, 11, 16 & 18). The study becomes much smaller when these women are disqualified.
The most glaring error in this study was its duration. The study was completed in less than four years, whereas it takes approximately 10-15 years for cervical cancer to develop from an HPV infection. The study calculated its success based on the precursors of cervical cancer, namely the presence of lesions. The truth is four years may not be long enough for the development of lesions after exposure. So even if the women in the study were not sexually active when they were given Gardasil and became sexually active within the study period, the absence of lesions in study participants would still mean nothing.
The reality is that HPV has the ability to remain latent (basically hidden in small numbers) for many, many years in the body. In times of great stress or immune suppression (such as with the hormonal changes in pregnancy) the virus can resurface and replicate. Still it will take a year or more for cell mutations to be recognizable. Even when a lesion does form, the body can still fight and reverse the cell changes because in truth the human immune system is excellent at managing HPV infection. Very few women go on to develop high-grade lesions. In the meantime there are several excellent treatments that remove lesions and in the process enable the body to develop immunity.
My last complaint concerns the vaccine itself. Gardasil and the placebo it was tested against contain aluminum. Normally when a vaccine or other injectible is tested, it is tested against a saline (salt water) placebo. Gardasil was tested against a placebo containing the aluminum preservative found in the vaccine itself. This created false data regarding the side effects of the vaccine. Since the vaccine showed only a negligible increase in side effects compared to placebo, it reads as relatively safe. But since aluminum itself is toxic to the human body those side effects resulting from the vaccine and the placebo could be substantial but not accounted for in the study. Already serious side effects are being reported from this vaccine.
Everyone should be worried about injecting aluminum into their bodies. Aluminum is implicated in serious conditions of toxicity including encephalopathy, coma, cancer, microcytic anemia and bone brittleness. It is also a leading cause of discomfort at the site of injection when an ingredient in vaccines.
So what we have in Gardasil is a poorly and deceitfully conducted study proving neither effectiveness nor safety. Now our various governmental institutions want to legislate its use! Stand up and say “NO!” Senators and congresspersons on the whole don’t know much about vaccines or medicine or even good research. They only know what a corrupt FDA and CDC tells them about a disease and its treatment options.
After all of the millions of dollars spent on the development of this vaccine, the best treatment of HPV remain a good diet and a healthy, low-stress lifestyle. The best prevention is comprehensive sex education that teaches kids about the risks associated with sexual activity and having multiple partners. And of course, if sexually active, a woman should have a pap smear every year without fail. Do this for yourself and your daughters and you can skip the vaccine.
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