Researcher who worked on cervical cancer vaccine warns about dangers

[lildreamer316]

** The article that this article was based on was published in the UK's Daily Express. I found a link to it several times on Google, as well as in the article I note here. However; the original interview has been deleted/says does not exist now on the Daily Express website. You can see that it *DID* exist before by looking up/Googling the keywords "Diane Harper Daily Express"; the first two or three results at the moment are a link to an article that obviously WAS there. If anyone knows how to find a copy somewhere please let me know.

Here is Dr. Diane Harper's resume/experience sheet from Dartmouth Medical:
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/faculty/facultydb/view.php?uid=2880

Top researcher who worked on cervical cancer vaccine warns about its dangers
Thursday, October 08, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

http://www.naturalnews.com/027196_cancer_cervical_cancer_cancer_vaccine.html

(NaturalNews) One of the key researchers involved in the clinical trials for both Gardasil and Cevarix cervical cancer vaccines has gone public with warnings about their safety and effectiveness. This highly unusual warning against these vaccines by one of Big Pharma's own researchers surfaced in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express in the UK over the last few days. There, Dr. Diane Harper openly admitted the vaccine doesn't even prevent cervical cancer, stating, " will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all."

This is astonishing news. The whole push behind the cervical cancer vaccines is based on the belief that they prevent cervical cancer. That belief, it turns out, is a myth.

Dr. Harper also warned that the cervical cancer vaccine was being "over-marketed" and that parents should be warned about the possible risk of severe side effects from the vaccine. She even concluded that the vaccine itself is more dangerous than the cervical cancer it claims to prevent!


In a New York Times article published last year, Dr. Harper spoke about the fear-based marketing of Gardasil by Merck:

"'Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women's group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people -- it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now..."

--More at link.

[laughingliberal]

1. ut oh. now they'll call you an anti-vaccer nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. And not without justification.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. HPV vaccines do prevent cervical cancer.

Not all cervical cancer, but they prevent much of it.

[CoffeeCat]

4. The pharmaceutical industry is immoral and greedy...

We can't trust the pharmaceutical industry, and it's such a shame--because we need them.

How many stories like this do we have to hear? Drugs that have been rushed through FDA approval, per
the demand of these pharmaceutical companies...side effects that have been downplayed or hidden...warning
labels on drugs like ritalin left off of bottles in the US.

As far as Gardisil goes, there was a doctor who came out and said the very same things when the vaccine was released.
Gardisil does not protect against all cervical cancers. Just some. And this doctor also said that more shots might
be needed because the effect could wear off. Most importantly--women would still need PAP smears and annual examinations,
because this vaccine was not a cure-all. Those exams would have caught any abnormalities early.

What I'm most astounded by is the rabid "Gardisil is wonderful!" cheerleaders who wouldn't even allow people to question
whether or not this was safe for our daughters. We were supposed to just fall in line and let them get the jab.

That's bizarre. And in this day and age--with the corporations hell bent on profits over public safety--it's downright
stupid.

I think the jury is still out on Gardisil. Information is coming in--and now it appears it's an inside researcher!

I am so glad I waited on this. There's nothing wrong with waiting--especially when these companies have shown time and
time again--that they put profit before public health.

I will continue to research and take in the information---and I will also continue to pat myself on the back for being
discerning and for trusting my instincts. Allowing pharmaceutical marketing to dictate your family's health plan
is not a good idea these days.

[trotsky]

5. There's a reason why the Daily Express pulled it.

Sunday Express accused of cancer jab scaremongering
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/oct/07/sundayexpress

...The story certainly alarmed Gary Andrews, who believes it to have been "not just wrong, but dangerously misleading to a degree that goes beyond scary."

In a lengthy analysis of the story, pegged to the death of Natalie Morton, Andrews contends that virtually every bit of it "is just plain wrong." He writes:

"I dislike hyperbole, but there's a very real chance that parents could read the story, refuse to allow their daughters the jab, only for their daughter to catch the virus, and contract cancer. This isn't politics, or food scares, or the like, this is the health, life and potentially death of the next generation of the female population. Is it really worth getting blood on the hands to sell a few extra papers in this manner?... There's a line between reporting potential health problems and dangerous scaremongering that could cost lives. On this occasion, the Express have crossed it."

"That this is based on the opinion of 'expert' Diane Harper is irrelevant. It doesn't matter what her opinion is: it only matters what the data show...

This is one of those occasions where the PCC should act swiftly and demand that the Sunday Express runs a front page "clarification" as soon as possible, in the next issue for instance. Once again, this tale illustrates how relying on a single "expert" to sensationalise a contentious issue - especially when the central "fact" of the reason for Natalie Morton's death has been found to be inaccurate - is a journalistic no-no.

[pnwmom]

10. Gary Andrews is just some blogger. He doesn't have any particular expertise

about HPV or the vaccine.

This is how he bills himself:

"Gary Andrews. Poorly designed blog WLTM content for social media, football and general waffle."

http://www.garyandrews.net/2009/10/05/oh-my-science-2/

[trotsky]

11. And yet the Sunday Express pulled the article.

That SHOULD tell you something.

[pnwmom]

15. Yeah, it tells me they probably didn't want to lose ad revenue from the drug co's

and pharmacies.

[LeftishBrit]

20. They get little or no revenue from the drug companies...

This is a British newspaper; and there are FAR more restrictions on Pharma advertising in the UK than in the USA (and a good thing too). Basically, prescription drugs cannot be advertised in the general media; only in publications aimed at the medical profession. Which the 'Diana Express' most definitely is not!

[trotsky]

22. Well that sure doesn't help the old conspiracy theory.

Dang you and your facts!

[trotsky]

21. Bullshit.

You are grasping at straws, desperate to spin the facts to suit your agenda. The article DECEITFULLY (you can still read it via Google cache) put a picture of Natalie Morton with the caption "Natalie Morton died shortly after being given a cervical cancer vaccine jab" when it was ALREADY PROVEN that Natalie died of a massive tumor, NOT the vaccine. Fear-mongering at its WORST.

The article was pulled because it was factually wrong, completely unbalanced, and full of misinformation.

[pnwmom]

26. The Natalie Morton case was a sufficient reason to pull the article, IMO.

But the Diane Harper quotations stand on their own, and she has made similar statements to other publications, including the JAMA.

[trotsky]

29. Why do you suppose lies are so damn prevalent in the anti-vax movement?

Why can't they just rely on the truth? They know the truth, right? Why the desperate need to lie, distort, and deceive?

[pnwmom]

35. Unfortunately, they're common in the vax-to-the-max pharma crowd, too.

You have to pick through the lies on both sides.

[trotsky]

37. Perhaps you could point out a few of those?

Thanks!

[pnwmom]

39. That if a girl has the 3-dose Gardasil vaccine, she won't develop cervical cancer.

Gardasil will only protect against the HPV viruses that cause about 70% of HPV related cervical cancers. And it is only known to be effective for five years, based on current data.

[trotsky]

40. And where was that bit of false information published?

Thanks much!

[pnwmom]

41. All over DU, every time someone says Gardasil will prevent cervical cancer. n/t

[Orrex]

42. Citation, please?

[trotsky]

43. Oh, I see. Posts on an anonymous message board, NOT a news outlet.

So you've got nothing even comparable then. I can still find articles on all the favorite anti-vax sites, like NaturalNews, Mercola, and Whale that still insist Natalie Morton died from the vaccine. But you have some posts from users on DU! (That you can't point to, of course.)

[Orrex]

30. You mean the girl who died because of a huge tumor?

What does she have to do with HPV vaccinations?

[pnwmom]

36. She had received an HPV vaccine soon before she died, so the vaccine

was potentially implicated until they did the autopsy.

[Orrex]

38. But after they did the autopsy, it was determined not to be a factor

So tell me again why she's relevant to discussions of HPV vaccinations?

[gkhouston]

33. Yes, she's being a responsible scientist and not overstating the scope of what's

been accomplished. But what if you aren't part of the "almost all" women who are believed to be capable of naturally clearing HPV from your system? A lot of women don't get regular screening and saying, "well, they should," isn't going to make that happen. The HPV vaccine isn't Superman, but it offers some protection, and for parents who are guessing about whether their daughters can repel HPV and will be able to afford health care throughout their lives, that "some protection" is attractive.

[SidDithers]

6. naturalnews...

now there's a source without an agenda.

Sid

[MineralMan]

7. The article was pulled because it was discredited...

and, yet, you posted a screed from an alternative medicine site about the article.

Don't get the shot. Leave others to decide based on real stuff, not articles pulled from publications.

[pnwmom]

8. We know what Diane Harper's credentials are. Who is this Gary Andrews,

the person who supposedly discredited her?

[gkhouston]

13. The article was pulled... perhaps because Dr. Harper found out she was being misquoted?

It would be easy enough for someone to point to a scientist and twist their statements into something they hadn't said to support an agenda.

[pnwmom]

16. You're making that up out of thin air. Sorry, but she's said this type of thing

in more than one interview.

[gkhouston]

32. She's saying the vaccine is overhyped. British tabloid articles make it out to be dangerous.

There's a big difference there.

[pnwmom]

9. Never mind, I figured it out. He's just a blogger, with no particular expertise. n/t

[Why Syzygy]

12. LOL...

let me guess... the skeptics don't believe the woman who created the vaccine. :eyes:

Like what, monolithic pharma is paying her off to discredit their golden goose?
Or would that be the massive anti-vax lobby? :sarcasm:

[CoffeeCat]

14. The article was pulled because the corporations rule...

...the media. And when someone from big Pharma calls up and orders your publication
to pull an article--many do.

This is an insider. This insider is echoing what another doctor said about Gardisil. This
is not new information. The other doctor warned that Gardisil could be harmful and that
many side effects were disconcerting and that more time was needed to assess the long-term effects.
Especially when Gardisil doesn't protect against all cervical cancers, and patients would still
have to get annual exams--which would detect any cancers anyway.

So the shot was always suspect. These questions have always been hanging in the air.

Big Pharma will vociferously try to squelch discussion and they will also attack and impugn anyone
who offers research or other proof that Gardisil isn't what all of the marketing materials say it is. It's
so Rovian and it's silly.

They've got billions riding on this.

Questions remain, and we should continue exploring the answer to these questions. The only people who
are for blindly accepting what the big Pharma marketing and public relations departments tell us--are
those who are either very ignorant or those who are shilling for big Pharma.

It's never wrong to ask questions--especially when you're talking about injecting young girls with a new drug.
I have a couple of doctors in our family and my best friend is a nurse. All of them suggested that we wait
on Gardisil.

[truedelphi]

24. How do we get to know trhe real from the unreal?

George Carlo - a researcher given twelve million dollars in the mid nineties to help the cell phone industry determine the risks.

He was considered the most pre-eminent of authorities on this issue - yet when his research found that there was considerable risk, involving brain tumors from said devices, he was immediately black listed.

Marc Lappe - working for Stanford Research Institute. His numbers indicated that malathion or RoundUp (It's been a long while since I talked with him, don't remember which) was not as benign as the SRI people wanted him to state. They asked him to skew his research. he refused... He was black listed. (However he went on to fund and work at his own research lab, to help all of yus activists who needed the alternative story to Big Corporate Interests' story.)

Pusztai was considered the pre-eminent of researchers dealing with GMO in plant life. Industry hired him so that they could assess the risks. he was immediately black listed when he discovered that the leptin enhanced GMO potatoes were causoing irritations in the rat's stomch linings. He was asked to alter his findings. he refused. he went overnight from being the darling of the "Real Scientific" community to being a "Doddering old man." (In other words, he was balck listed.)

And read my article on the news media and how they will totally fabricate quotes from researchers -even if the researchers are saying something is risky - The AP will simply say and report that they said the opposite! URL is
http://tinyurl.com/ylsflag

[Why Syzygy]

17. Medscape/WebMD

August 18, 2009

~snip~

Approached for comment, Diane Harper, MD, from the University of Missouri- Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City, Missouri, commented to Medscape Oncology that the PMAs "must confess to both their memberships and to the women whose health they serve that they were overtly exuberant in their hopefulness for vaccination and are guilty of presenting essentially only the information that Merck wanted presented."

~snip~

"The theory behind the vaccine is sound: if HPV infection can be prevented, cancer will not occur," writes editorialist Charlotte Haug, MD, PhD, from the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association. "But in practice, the issue is more complex."

HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection, "but the virus does not appear to be very harmful because almost all HPV infections are cleared by the immune system," she explains. In a few women, the HPV infection persists, and some women may develop precancerous cervical lesions and eventually cancer, Dr. Haug writes, "but it is currently impossible to predict in which women this will occur."

The net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain.

"The net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain," Dr. Haug comments. "Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened ."

Dr. Haug has spoken out against HPV vaccination previously. Last year, she urged caution over widespread vaccination programs in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine (2008;359:861–862), as reported by Medscape Oncology at the time.

~snip~

[pnwmom]

27. Thank you for more info from educated sources. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

18. Sigh, the wonderful British Press in its full glory again

The Daily Express - which calls itself 'The World's Greatest Newspaper'!- is yet another of our RW and totally unreliable tabloids. They are most noted for their obsession with Princess Diana, and readiness to invent all manner of conspiracy theories about her death. Other than that, they are a typical arch-Tory anti-immigrant sensationalist rag.

I wouldn't trust them to report any medical (or other) issue accurately.

[trotsky]

23. The anti-vaxers have shown time and time again that they'll embrace ANY sleazy media outlet...

so long as it says something to support their crusade. This is pathetic.

[Orrex]

31. Oh yeah?!? Well, what do you know about the British press?

Oh, wait a minute...

[truedelphi]

19. Hey I am Rec number five

Off to the greatest!

[Chemisse]

25. It's too bad the NYT article is not linked

I would be interested to see what she said exactly. Is she arguing that HPV is not particularly harmful? Is she saying the results were falsified or supressed? I am curious about her motivation for coming forward.

[Igel]

28. Is this it?

It's the version Google says is cached.

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:ckeH3LgaZO4J:www.express.co.uk/posts/view/131817/Jab-as-deadly-as-the-cancer-+Diane+Harper+Daily+Express&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[northernlights]

34. from a CBS interview with Dr. Harper from last August

Personally, I'm not automatically anti-vax. There are diseases that vaccines are truly useful for. This just doesn't happen to be one of them.

It doesn't pass the risk versus benefit test. PAP smears are still required, and remain the best prevention. The rate of adverse side effects from the vaccine matches the death rate from cervical cancer. Furthermore, when *all* the numbers are tallied, the adverse side effect rate from the vaccine could potentially be 5 times that of the disease (article explains rationale behind this).


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/19/cbsnews_investigates/main5253431.shtml

Dr. Diane Harper says young girls and their parents should receive more complete warnings before receiving the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Dr. Harper helped design and carry out the Phase II and Phase III safety and effectiveness studies to get Gardasil approved, and authored many of the published, scholarly papers about it. She has been a paid speaker and consultant to Merck. It’s highly unusual for a researcher to publicly criticize a medicine or vaccine she helped get approved.

Dr. Harper joins a number of consumer watchdogs, vaccine safety advocates, and parents who question the vaccine’s risk-versus-benefit profile. She says data available for Gardasil shows that it lasts five years; there is no data showing that it remains effective beyond five years.

This raises questions about the CDC’s recommendation that the series of shots be given to girls as young as 11-years old. “If we vaccinate 11 year olds and the protection doesn’t last... we’ve put them at harm from side effects, small but real, for no benefit,” says Dr. Harper. “The benefit to public health is nothing, there is no reduction in cervical cancers, they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for at least 15 years, and over 70% of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated.” She also says that enough serious side effects have been reported after Gardasil use that the vaccine could prove riskier than the cervical cancer it purports to prevent. Cervical cancer is usually entirely curable when detected early through normal Pap screenings.

Dr. Scott Ratner and his wife, who’s also a physician, expressed similar concerns as Dr. Harper in an interview with CBS News last year. One of their teenage daughters became severely ill after her first dose of Gardasil. Dr. Ratner says she’d have been better off getting cervical cancer than the vaccination. “My daughter went from a varsity lacrosse player at Choate to a chronically ill, steroid-dependent patient with autoimmune myofasciitis. I’ve had to ask myself why I let my eldest of three daughters get an unproven vaccine against a few strains of a nonlethal virus that can be dealt with in more effective ways.”

According to Dr. Harper, assessing the true adverse event risk of Gardasil, and comparing it to the risk of cervical cancer can be tricky and complex. "The number of women who die from cervical cancer in the US every year is small but real. It is small because of the success of the Pap screening program."

"The risks of serious adverse events including death reported after Gardasil use in (the JAMA article by CDC’s Dr. Barbara Slade) were 3.4/100,000 doses distributed. The rate of serious adverse events on par with the death rate of cervical cancer. Gardasil has been associated with at least as many serious adverse events as there are deaths from cervical cancer developing each year. Indeed, the risks of vaccination are underreported in Slade's article, as they are based on a denominator of doses distributed from Merck's warehouse. Up to a third of those doses may be in refrigerators waiting to be dispensed as the autumn onslaught of vaccine messages is sent home to parents the first day of school. Should the denominator in Dr. Slade's work be adjusted to account for this, and then divided by three for the number of women who would receive all three doses, the incidence rate of serious adverse events increases up to five fold. How does a parent value that information," said Harper.

[davsand]

44. That five year effectiveness thing concerns me.

It has happened before that the initial vaccine will only confer immunity for a period of time rather than a lifetime. We saw it with the Varicella vaccine (Chickenpox) when it first came out. My daughter is 12 and we had her vaccinated for Varicella fairly soon after the vaccine was released. Now it is a few years later and she's gonna need to be vaccinated again to maintain immunity...

If you look at how HPV transmits, it isn't like a lot of the other stuff they vaccinate for--there is an element of choice or even control that comes into play. We opted to wait a bit to decide whether to have her vaccinated. I talked to a few other parents with girls the same age--some are medical people--and they also decided to wait a bit before making the decision.

For me, anyway, it just came down to the realization that the benefit may not be enough (or even present) for her at this point in time. It may be later, but not right now.



Laura

[Why Syzygy]

45. Any protocol

structure that routinely gives Hepatitis B vaccines to new born babies, needs to be questioned about all its recommendations. Some areas of medicine have gone mad.

[trotsky]

46. Mad with making great strides against a lifelong debilitating disease?

http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-hepatitis-b-vaccine_1561.bc

Hepatitis B is generally considered an adult disease because it's known to be transmitted through unsafe sex and shared needles. But many who get it, including children, don't engage in these "high-risk" behaviors. They're either infected at birth or they contract the disease from close contact during childhood with others who are infected.

Hepatitis B is highly infectious. An estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million people in the United States have the virus, and 20 to 30 percent of them acquired the disease in childhood. Many of them never feel sick and don't know they have it, but those who become infected as children are more likely to have long-term health problems such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. About 2,000 to 4,000 Americans die from hepatitis B-related illness every year.

The HBV vaccine was introduced in 1982 and became part of the recommended immunization schedule in the United States in 1991. Since then, the incidence of acute hepatitis B has dropped by over 95 percent in children and adolescents, and over 75 percent overall. The number of new infections per year has declined from an average of 260,000 in the 1980s to about 43,000 in 2007, with the biggest decline among children and adolescents.

Hep B vaccination has been an unqualified success.

[Orrex]

47. "Hep B vaccination has been an unqualified success."

Yet somehow we still see a lot of unqualified critics criticizing it.