Gardasil: Fact vs. Fiction

As you get to know Mr. Hubbs you realize his medical and vaccine conspiracy theories are not only limited to autism or mercury or thimerosal, but rather to pretty much any vaccine ever developed. This includes the MMR vaccine, the polio vaccine (I'm working on a post related to his "sugar causes polio" nonsense), and of course the Gardasil vaccine.

In fact, for quite some time you could even say Gardasil was Mr. Hubbs' favorite topic, and he considers himself one of the world's foremost researchers on the subject. Granted 100% of what he knows has been obtained via Google searches and he has never set foot in an actual scientific research lab and has never taken a single college course on biochemistry (or any other college course for that matter) nor has he ever bothered to read the numerous medical studies which were performed on the vaccine prior to the FDA approval, but lets try to avoid those issues for now.

So although it doesn't surprise me that Mr. Hubbs would write about Gardasil, what does surprise me is that he makes claims which he himself has never been able to substantiate with science. Case in point is the following comment left on a Gardasil discussion by our very own Mr. Hubbs:

"The fact is 90% of HPV infections clear on their own. This vaccination is unproven to how long immunity lasts, may be no more than 5 yrs at best. HPV is not proven to cause cervical cancer, only that HPV sometimes resides in precancerous cervical lesions. The theory that any virus causes cancer is also unproven and questioned by several medical reseachers. [sic]" ~Lowell Hubbs

So here we have Mr. Hubbs giving us facts about HPV as if he has first hand knowledge. Don't bother asking for a source to validate his statements however as Mr. Hubbs is likely to refer you to his own blog as evidence. The simple truth is HPV may clear on its own, but so can the mumps or measles or any number of other viruses. Meningitis could also clear on its own if you really want to get technical, but does that mean nobody should get vaccinated because the virus MIGHT clear on its own with no side effects?

It probably doesn't matter to Mr. Hubbs that those with HPV could spread it to others just as those with measles or mumps could spread it to others. Mr. Hubbs doesn't seem to care about those who might contract a virus from another person however, he just wants to prevent anyone from ever being vaccinated. The fact that a virus could be passed from person to person and could eventually lead to one or more people being diagnosed with cancer, or in some cases that people could actually die as as direct result from a simple preventable virus just isn't that important to Mr. Hubbs.

Of course his care for others doesn't stop there, and his comments continue:

"some Gardasil ingrediants,[sic] polysorbate 80, (said to disperse the ingrediants [sic] in the vaccine more uninformly [sic]), causes infertily [sic] in mice, and no research on that by Merck was done. The vaccine also contains histidine, also known to cause severe allergic reacions [sic], additionally the vaccine contains sodium borate, similar to Borax and has been used as roach killer, tell me whay [sic] that is in the vaccine? Do the homework, stop first, research this on the net extensively like I have for weeks. The benfits [sic] do no outweigh the risks." ~Lowell Hubbs

So according to Mr. Hubbs, the benefit of preventing a young girl or woman from contracting cervical cancer doesn't outweigh the risks of getting the vaccine. Granted he doesn't provide any facts or figures to show us why these risks are so significant, and he doesn't compare the number of doses given of the vaccine with no side effects versus the few claims of vaccine injury.

So let's go ahead and do that for Mr. Hubbs since he seems incapable of doing so for himself. According to the CDC as of September 30, 2010, approximately 32 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed in the US. That is 32,000,000 doses and according to Mr. Hubbs, 32,000,000 chances that a risk would outweigh a benefit.

So of these 32,000,000 doses, how many resulted in negative side effects or "risks"? Well, again according to the CDC as of September 30, 2010, there were 17,160 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports of adverse events following Gardasil vaccination in the US. Of these reports, 92% were reports of events considered to be non-serious, and 8% were reports of events considered serious.

So out of 17,160 events, approximately 92% (or 15,787 events) are non-serious. This includes things like pain at the injection site (common for any shot), dizziness, headache, fever, or fainting. Since these events are not serious and typically clear up on their own, lets disregard them for the sake of this discussion.

This leaves us with the 8% (or approximately 1,373 events) which are classified as serious. Of this 8%, some of these events include girls being diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), although once again if we refer to the CDC source material we find "there has been no indication that Gardasil increases the rate of GBS in girls and women above the rate expected in the general population, whether or not they were vaccinated."

So what does that mean? Well it simply means the incidence of girls being diagnosed with GBS occurs in the same rate whether they were or were not vaccinated with Gardasil. Therefore scientifically speaking we cannot link the rate of GBS with the vaccination and the only reason these types of events are reported to VAERS is because the system is intended to collect all events whether related or not. Since there is no proven increase in the rate of GBS, it doesn't appear this is a significant risk.

Another serious event reported included blood clots. This isn't so much of an issue with Gardasil as it is with an injection itself of course, but as it turns out those girls and women who experienced blood clots were in the "at risk" category which includes those who smoke, those who take oral contraceptives, and those who are considered obese. Thus in this case, a number of factors may have contributed to the blood clots including lifestyle choice... so is this something we can blame solely upon the Gardasil vaccine? Not very likely.

An example of this would be building a home. The foundation is designed to support a single family home with one story above ground, and assuming the house is build as designed everything will be fine. However decades later, the new owner of the house decides he needs more room, so he adds another two stories to the house. He doesn't bother to reinforce the foundation, and assumes everything will be fine. He finishes the project and decides to put a new hot tub on the third floor which holds 1,000 gallons of water. A few weeks after living in the new expanded house it starts to settle. A few weeks after that the foundation develops a huge crack on one wall, and soon the foundation fails and the house falls down bringing the hot tub and the 1,000 gallons of water into the basement.

So is the hot tub to blame for the foundation failing? Obviously not - because there was a known weak point in the home. Had the foundation been strong enough to accept a larger structure, there wouldn't be a problem, but we don't blame the failure on the hot tub merely because we didn't know about the weak foundation.

The same is true with a case where a vaccine or medication might result in a condition which was underlying. Even if we didn't know about the condition, is it the fault of the vaccine if it comes to the surface? If we did know about the condition, but didn't think it would impact us, is it still fair to blame the vaccine if we are proven wrong? I dare say there is inherent risk in everything we do, but we can no more blame the vaccine for an underlying condition when we knew about the risk factors than we can blame the hot tub for the failing foundation when the builder knew about the weak foundation.

All of this said, the one primary serious event that everyone is concerned with is the risk of death, so if it is determined that Gardasil results in girls dying simply by taking the vaccine, then surely it needs to be addressed. Looking at the CDC material, we can see that out of those 32,000,000 doses of Gardasil that have been given thus far, there have been 56 deaths reported among females who have received the Gardasil vaccination.

Now if we assume every woman receives the full recommended three dose schedule of the vaccine, that tells us that 10,700,000 woman have received Gardasil thus far, and of those 10,700,000 woman 56 have died. I don't mean to trivialize 56 deaths. In fact I don't even mean to trivialize one single death, but the math tells us these 56 deaths account for approximately 0.0005% of the women who received the Gardasil vaccination. In other words the remaining 99.9995% of women are still alive and with us.

More importantly however, according to the CDC out of these 56 deaths (which of only 30 have been confirmed thus far), there was "no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine". This means that if a woman died of a totally unrelated heart issue within days or perhaps even weeks of receiving the Gardasil vaccine, that event would be reported to VAERS. It doesn't mean Gardasil caused the issue, but to err on the side of caution, all such events are reported.

However since the analysis of these deaths does not include any pattern or clustering when compared to non-vaccinated control groups, no reasonable researcher or scientist (or even anyone with an open mind) can claim that these deaths are all related to the Gardasil vaccine itself. In fact if you read about the actual deaths in greater detail, you will find in some cases the deaths were directly attributed to causes such as illicit drug use and heart failure. Can we really blame a death upon a vaccination when the women decides to inject herself with illegal drugs and dies of an overdose? I personally don't think so.

Now it is quite possible a woman out there has died or been seriously injured as a direct result of the vaccine. Each person is unique, we all have different genetic traits including dominant and recessive genes. We each have different risk factors, different traits such as allergies or reactions to chemical compounds, and we each have our own medical histories which may include other prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, supplements, nutrient intakes etc, etc. Therefore no medication, supplement, or even food is compatible with all humans, and as such there will always be a risk when someone decides to eat a new food, take a new supplement, use a new brand of toothpaste, or yes even take a new medication or vaccination.

Obviously anything and everything we do has risk, and it is up to each individual to determine if they feel that risk is acceptable when compared to the benefits of eating the food, swallowing the supplement or vitamin, taking the medication, receiving the vaccine, or undergoing a medical procedure etc. I don't believe that is my place to tell someone else that they must get vaccinated, but at the same time I don't believe it is in Mr. Hubbs' place to tell them they can't. It is a personal decision best left up to the individual when they take all of the risk factors into mind.

However it seems clear in this case, the risk of receiving a Gardasil vaccination is no greater than the risk of choosing to eat a sandwich for lunch or the decision to take aspirin to relieve a headache. For all of the screaming and yelling and arguments made against this vaccine really don't live up to scrutiny when you look at the facts and examine the real numbers.

Granted I'm not the only one who feels this way, as a poster named "Amber" who responded to Mr. Hubbs' comment had the following to say:

"Ah, well, we all know internet research trumps firsthand experience…"

Well played Amber... well played indeed.

http://www.hpvhometest.com/merck-gardasil-has-your-child-been-vaccinated-tell-us-your-story/

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/302/7/750

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Vaccines/HPV/jama.html

http://vaers.hhs.gov/index