Gardasil questions.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Good morning all, thanks for clicking.

I think it’s best if I give you my situation, and you all can use super dope powers and steer me in the right direction.

March 2012 (8 months ago), my seemingly 100% healthy 26 year old Korean girlfriend was administered the first of three Gardasil vaccination shots at the suggestion from her Gyno during her annual examination.

Later in the day she did a google search on Gardasil and was shocked to read all the accounts of the terrible life altering side effects of Gardasil and vaccinations in general. She immediately canceled the remaining two Gardasil boosters, and swore off vaccinations forever.

Within weeks she started complaining about stomach/pelvic pains.

Fast forward 8 months to the present. She’s been back to her gyno and primary a dozen times. She’s had her blood and urine tested half a dozen times. Two sonograms and a CT scan. everything has come back 100% normal. Every doctor (primary, gyno, gastro) says she is fine and have actually given up and requested she not come back.

We’re now seeing a holistic healer who has prescribed a variety of woo to combat the toxins and heavy metals.

Which brings me to my actual question. What resources can I show her to convince her vaccinations are safe and rigorously tested and monitored?

Also, please help me make her feel better. I’m hoping if I can convince her it’s not Gardasil.

I’m sorry for the long vague post, I really hope you all can guide me to some solution. I’ll answer any questions so feel free to ask.

Thanks again!

2

Quackwatch is a good place to start: http://www.quackwatch.com/

However, without knowing anything about you, I think it unlikely you will win the argument AND preserve the relationship.

3

Thanks for that link.

She is a wonderful girl, very smart and usually just as skeptical as me. I feel if I can show her enough science based answers she’ll come around.

4

The Centers for Disease Control is one of the best sources for vaccine information, including about Gardasil, which has a safety record comparable to that of other commonly used vaccines (in other words, excellent). Gardasil was put through clinical trials years before approval, in testing on 29,000 men and women and the vast majority of side effects were on the order of minor problems like vaccine site pain and swelling, brief fever etc. Post-marketing surveillance has also confirmed safety of Gardasil.

“In 2011, (Vaccine Safety Datalink) active surveillance (called Rapid Cycle Analysis) looked at specific adverse events following more than 600,000 doses of Gardasil, such as Guillain–Barré Syndrome (GBS)External Web Site Icon, stroke, VTE, appendicitis, seizures, syncope, allergic reactions, and anaphylaxis. No statistically significant increased risk for any of these adverse events was detected after vaccination.”

Gardasil has been the subject of unusually active scaremongering for a couple of reasons - it’s only recently entered use (giving antivaxers a new target to aim at), the dysplasias and cancers it prevents typically occur after years of HPV infection (so the immediate need for prevention is less obvious), and the vaccine’s usefulness is tied to (shudder) sexual activity, and there’s a subset of complainants who think Gardasil encourages licentious behavior.

Much of the scaremongering relates to VAERS, a system for reporting possible vaccine adverse reactions which anyone can contribute to, including antivaxers and lawyers hoping to create grounds for lawsuits. It is highly unreliable unless events are carefully and systematically studied.

In sum, there’s tons of bad information out there and a lesser amount of good, reliable data. It is extremely unlikely a Gardasil shot would be responsible for stomach/pelvic pains developing weeks later (unexplained abdominal pain in women can be caused by a zillion things, including endometriosis, ovarian cysts, fibroids etc., and even when these are ruled out lots of cases are never riddled).

5

If a competent workup finding nothing wrong did not reassure her, and if she is seeing a holistic healer working on ameliorating the effects of toxins and heavy metal toxicity, she may be as skeptical as you are but she is not skeptical enough. It’s a significant red flag that two different scientists (physicians) have discharged her from their practice and she has glommed on to a holistic healer (who, IMHO, is likely to be utterly clueless about science).

This sort of situation is more often a personality problem than a “smart” problem, and I doubt that anything you do will dissuade her from her anxiety that she has been contaminated in some way.

Since you have asked for guidance, I’ll venture an opinion here, on the assumption that part of the OP could have been under IMHO.

IMHO either accept her like this, or bail on the relationship. IMHO you will not convince her otherwise based on scientific facts or reasoning. IMHO this is her personality and not her reasoning powers, at work. IMHO the same personality trait may manifest again elsewhere.

6

Medical advice is best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

7

I really appreciate the responses.

I’m holding on to the hope that all is not lost and that I can really convince her that some quack telling her to take forty dollar magic polls is ludicrous.

But from her perspective I can see why she is losing hope and becoming desperate.

I plan to show her this thread. Once she sees impartial intelligent discussion on the subject I’m sure she’ll come around.

8

Oh sorry I wasn’t sure.

9

If several physicians have already tried to convince her that there is nothing wrong, I doubt there is anything you can tell her that will make a difference unfortunately. This is who she is. Can you deal with it?
You may want to read about somatoform disorders and how to deal with someone who has a somatoform disorder. Directly challenging them usually doesn’t work.

While nobody here can say with 100% certainty that she doesn’t have some sort of medical issue going on that has been undetected, many cases like this that I’ve seen were really more about the person having a psychological problem that manifested itself as a physical complaint. This doesn’t mean she’s faking it or that she isn’t really experiencing pain. Much like how some people blush when they’re feeling ashamed, there are people who develop pain complaints when they’re feeling anxious/depressed/etc. The mind can really play tricks on the body.

10

Hello Foopyx! I hope that your girlfriend remains well.

Unfortunately it might be difficult to convince her that the vaccine is safe. The reason is that there are many questions which even the manufacturer and other promoters can’t answer.

Here’s a list of unanswered questions:
Whether it prevents cancer, necessity for boosters, whether it increases the risk of cancer, whether there is increased risk of cancer due to the unexpected discovery by an independent laboratory of aluminium bound recombinant HPV DNA, whether Gardasil vaccinated may donate blood without the aluminium bound recombinant HPV DNA causing serious health consequences for the recipient, whether there is increased risk of autoimmune disorders due to the recombinant HPV DNA, if HPV is necessarily an infection transmitted by sexual intercourse, whether the vaccine causes genotoxicity, whether it targets the relevant virus strains in different demographics, whether the strains change in the course of time, adverse events due to concomitant administration with other vaccines, the true numbers and extent of serious adverse events, long term serious side effects, what the results would be if a true placebo had been used in all the clinical trials, what the results of clinical trials would be if Merck had not used their own exclusion criteria, whether there is increased risk of blood clots when Gardasil is combined with hormonal contraceptive pills, whether there is an increased risk of brain damage, consequences of “bridging” - the extrapolation of study results from one group to another, potentially serious consequences if the vaccine is not thoroughly shaken, whether the vaccine will increase the risk of infertility due to polysorbate, whether polysorbate is carcinogenic, health consequences due to the presence of the combination of polysorbate and l-histidine, whether aluminium adjuvant is safe, consequences due to the presence sodium borate (borax), whether the vaccine will increase the risk of miscarriages, stillbirths or babies born with anomalies, whether Gardasil is excreted in human milk, the complete list of ingredients, whether possible benefits outweigh the risks.
After you are completely satisfied with all the answers, then you can begin considering whether or not the vaccine is safe!

11

I say, go with the HPV.
Seems like the safer alternative.
Heck, I’m not even getting out of bed until I see more studies. Might be a conspiracy out there to get me up.
As I think about it, the girlfriend in the OP is probably a goner.

12

Well, the Mindanoiha (does that rhyme with “paranoia”?) Gish Gallop has brought up some really really good points, but they don’t even scratch the surface of unanswered questions about Gardasil.

Where are the studies about whether Gardasil is safe to administer to people using suntan lotion, especially the higher SPF formulations? Do we really know whether toenail fungus problems are worse after vaccination? Does Gardasil make the spleen wrinkly? Does the water in Gardasil pose a risk of toxicity (water intoxication can be fatal)? Do recipients of Gardasil have a greater tendency to engage in sexual practices frowned on in red states?

I mean, there’s serious stuff here we just don’t know.

And I congratulate Mindanoiha for raising the question of whether HPV is transmitted by sexual activity. Of course the “experts” tell us it is and that Gardasil prevents HPV transmission, but they’re just a bunch of Pharma Shills. Much better to believe what you hear on Mercola and NaturalNews.

13

Mindanoiha forgot to mention that it hasn’t been conclusively proven that Gardasil didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy.

There are a couple of posters here who actually wrote a book about why vaccines are not only safe but one of the best things ever to happen to the human race, no exaggeration. I think it’s mainly about kids’ vaccines rather than Gardasil, but it might be worth checking out. Here’s the thread about it:

IMO, though, there are two separate questions here: a) whether her pain has a physical cause or a psychological one, and b) whether it was caused by Gardasil.

To me, b) seems very unlikely. But - and this will sound weird - why not go with the holistic guy’s treatment, if it’s not harmful or too expensive? If the pain is in fact psychological in origin, the holistic guy’s treatment might cure it. Me, if I had a loved one in pain, I’d care more about getting her better than about convincing her she was wrong about the source of the pain.

A) is a different question. Doctors do miss things. Especially when the patient is a woman, and especially when she shows up blaming her pain on something improbable, many (not all) doctors are very ready to dismiss the pain as being all in her head. We haven’t come all that far from the days when, if a woman had symptoms that a doctor couldn’t explain, they were promptly dismissed as ‘hysteria’. Would the tests she’s had catch endometriosis, for example?

14

Mindanoiha: damn you poe’s law! I appreciate your feedback, in jest or not.

Chief P and Jack: thank you sincerely for the levity. And for the link.

Eclectic Wench: I completely agree with your stance. I am doing everything I can to be supportive, and already purchased some super heavy metal detox purge cleanse made from unicorn farts and moon dust. She enjoys being right, I have a sneaking suspicion that she’ll get better just to spite my incredulous wannabe-know-it-all ass.

She has had every logical test done. everything has been ruled out, including endometriosis.

what I’d love to find out is some info to debunk some of the claims made by anti-vaxers.

A. Big pharm is just paying off or in cahoots with regulator bodies, so they can make gigantic profits off the perpetual sickness of americans.

B. There is very little evidence that vax do anything except make people sick and line the pockets of big pharm.

C. The tests and trials proving vax safety are either inaccurate or doctored.

What’s the best way to debunk those above claims?

15

A. The burden of proof is on the person making the claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Who is being paid off? As in, what are the names of the regulators, how much did big pharma give them, and can someone please produce a receipt?

B. Pick a disease (polio, smallpox, mumps, rubella, pertussis, etc.) Pick a country. Put the year on the x axis and the infection rate on the y axis. Mark the year when mass immunization for that disease started. See how it goes down after that? See also, the recent resurgence of pertussis in communities where immunization rates have dropped.

C. Burden of proof, etc.

Does she also believe in “fan death”?

16

A) Good luck proving to her that enormous companies out for profit can’t be paid off. Poul Thorsen indicted for fraudulent research papers:

Big pharma makes medicine. Medicine covers symptoms and causes others. If you are seriously gullible enough to believe there are no false claims made by big pharma companies, just look into the facts. There are constantly recalls and sometimes lawsuits against medical companies for various things. Eg, Vioxx settlement by Merck.

B) Look at the rates of diseases before vaccines were introduced. Look at pro-vax websites like inside-vaccines.com and the CDC info. They always use huge global numbers to tell of how terrifying the diseases are, yet their charts showing the declination of diseases due to vaccines is isolated to America. Why does America have a higher rate of infant death and the highest rate of vaccination? Why is it normal for seizures to occur after vax? And why the hell are so many babies developmentally delayed and sick all the time? I’ve heard reports from my pro-vax friends that their child showed delay after their vaxes. Furthermore why are 90% of pertussis cases in vaccinated individuals? Also, why did the vaccine schedule increase from 10 doses to 49 doses from 1983 to 2012? There was no epidemic there, so what are we upping the doses for? Also, what of the Cutter Incident or SV40? Any clue what those are? Did you know that formaldehyde was named a carcinogen in June 2011, yet is in most vaccines? Did you know that aluminum is known to alter DNA and linked with medical conditions including Alzheimer’s and dementia, and is in almost all vaccines? Did you know that MSG and aspartame are known excitoxins, and are known to be terrible for health? Why is there no direct research on these facts?

C) Refer to point A and Poul Thorsen.
It sounds to me like you need to review both sides of the fence and all research before deciding your girlfriend is full of it just because you want to.

17

:dubious:

A) By that logic we should throw out all items made by pharmaceutical companies including chemotherapy drugs and aspirin.

B) Americans count deaths differently than other nations. We are much more inclined to attempt to save very early babies that other nations do not. The notion that our babies are sicker is not born out by anything other than anti-vax fantasy. If 90% of all cases of pertussis are in vaccinated individuals that is because 90% of all babies are vaccinated. How can you possibly consider thousands of annual cases of diseases like hib and hep b not an epidemic?

Do you know that your very own body contains formaldehyde right now? In fact many items you probably eat including pears also have formaldehyde? Minute amounts of aluminum, MSG and aspertame are hardly a danger to anyone’s health. What’s next? Are you going to tell us the sucrose in vaccines is making our kids fat?

The problem with the cutter incident was the fact that pharmaceutical companies have since shied away from making vaccines. As Dr. Paul Offit states in a very good book on the subject:

You can keep yelling Paul Thorsen but as a highly respected science blogger states:

18

We do get into the gardasil vaccine in the book. Probably the most amazing thing to me about the vaccine is that it’s already working:

I would not mess around with HPV. One of my dear friends has a sister who had to have a hysterectomy in her early thirties because of it!

:frowning:

19

I may have missed something here but why inoculate someone against HPV after they have already (presumably) been sexually active?

I seem to remember reading that this vaccine is not given to sexually active females in the UK.

20

My WAG is perhaps the woman in the OP hasn’t had that much sexual experience, and her gyno thought it could still be helpful.