One More Drug, One Less Choice
I've seen the One Less commercial. The one for Gardasil. I guess you know it too, If you're in the US and have a television, you can't help having seen it. The one that talks about being one One Less
One less what? I wondered, until I finally sat down and made myself pay attention.
Then what struck me most when I actually heard this commercial was how indefinite it was.
It begins aggressively, with strong girls who have definite opinions. They are very certain they want to be One Less. (One less woman to battle cervical cancer.) Well, okay. No one WANTS to have cervical cancer.
But the commercial gets very indefinite when it starts talking about this miracle drug.
Gardasil. The commercial says "It is the only vaccine that MAY guard..(it doesn't say that it DOES guard, just that it may) ...
May what? eliminate the disease? No, nothing so solid. It MAY help protect. You see, it doesn't actually protect, eliminate or prevent. It just MIGHT help.
What might it protect from? It might help protect your daughters from the 4 types of hpv. Ok, that should be a good thing. And this is especially good because hpv causes 70% of cervical cancer. And then, the ad goes on to say, it might not fully protect everyone from 70%. I won't get started on talking about the side affects that are mentioned in the commercial. I'm more worried about the side affects that come afterwards for a drug that "might protect some girls against some of the causes" of cervical cancer.
And now we hear how some people have died after taking it.
Is this a drug that we should be requiring ALL girls to take?
I would understand if it were a vaccine that works across the board like some of the others. Like the vaccine against polio that actually DOES work to make everyone's (uncompromised) immune systems able to resist polio. But this is something else...a vaccine against a virus which might protect some girls against a percentage of some viruses that cause some cancer.
I really don't know how smart this is to require all girls to take this drug, especially when there's some interaction that has caused several deaths related to Gardasil test cases and it only protects a percentage of some girls against some of the virus that causes some of the cancer.
What if Gardasil causes some unknown thing down the road? The way that there already seems to be some unknown thing--some drug, or food, or additive, or who knows what?-that causes some children to develop autism?
Shouldn't we know more about what this drug is going to do to our precious daughters ten years down the road?
Girls have died from taking this drug. Girls have been found with Guillain-Barre Syndrome that showed up after vaccination. The highest incidence of GBS is when the drug was administered in conjunction with more than one type of vaccine - i.e., Gardasil with menactra, or other combinations.
Okay, statistically, the numbers sound like scare tactics. Three deaths out of how many? More importantly--since those deaths seem to have been related to pre-existing conditions like heart disease, what about girls who have undiagnosed heart disease? Is this drug going to kill off all girls with undiagnosed heart disease? Or was it an interaction with something they were taking? And how is this vaccine going to affect girls in ten years? Can the drug developer's scientific research guarantee that--for example--that a percentage won't develop Guillain-Barre Syndrome as the result of some interaction? Or a percentage bear autistic children as a result? or some other unknown consequence?
A note: Boys don't have cervixes but they get HPV too. Don't some of them deserve protection from some HPV also? If not, why not? This is a disease that is spread thru sexual contact. If this drug is safe enough for girls to take, why is it ok for boys to be carriers?
People. Let the scientists work on this one until it's ripe before we start requiring it across the board. Do we have to fall for a drug company's lobby to make their product mandatory?
I want to be one less.
One less parent feeding my daughter an incompletely researched drug in the hopes of finding a magic bullet.
At least leave the decision in my hands. Does everything have to be a government mandate?
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Comments
Don't forget the two biggest lies:
"I promise I'll pull out"
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."
Posted by: Bryan | November 17, 2007 12:02 AM
I agree 100% with you about the "hpv" pill being mandated for teenage girls..how absurd! I have never quite understood how the medical community can be so blind about mandating for females certain things but never males. It would seem that America, like China, places little value on female lives, yet holds us responsible for just about everything!
Posted by: Deborah Shaw | November 17, 2007 5:06 AM
There are several key aspects of the argument and the movement here:
The first of these, of course, capitalizes on fear of a disease that is highly preventable and easily treatable.
The second part of this is as it was termed publicly by its inventor as the "greatest experiment in history." I kid you not! It has been quoted several times! Our lives are not an experiment. Our girls lives are certainly worth more than that.
The third aspect, of course, is the legislation. No one should be required to take an experimental vaccine no matter how it was passed. No one should have to take something that may only limit the chances because it targets 4 strains. Will this not strengthen the other strains as we have seen with drug resistant Malaria and drug resistant TB? Much more than that, given the side effects and the ever-increasing reports of severe life-altering and life ending side effects, how then can we allow this? Canada has better records of cases here than the government is freely passing with regard to Gardisil, despite legal requests!
In a recent investigation conducted by Harvard, it revealed that the pharmaceutical industry in the US is involved in multiple layers of numerous schools, corproations and levels of government and concluded that this should NOT be. As evidenced by the more recent reports of the corruption of the FDA and growing recalls, we need to do more!
Much more than this, we also need to consider how this affects women and girls in lesser developed countries with compromised immune systems and/or genetic adaptations. We are after all members of one global family but equipped with regional adaptations. Examples are abundant! Given that one third of childhood deafness in China is caused by the use of antibiotics, recent evidence that anitbiotic use in infants significantly increases risks of asthma, etc., and the European medical mission to Nigeria using the live polio vaccine caused an outbreak, we need to think full-circle. All too often, neo-colonialism prevails here without thought to all ther corresponding systems at work here, including clean water, sanitation, and/or the lack thereof.
Accountability and transparency is one issue but several other impending and much greater far-reaching ones must be considered.
Gardisil should, if nothing else, perhaps, be a choice. It is experimental, despite its pharmaceutical legitimacy. In an industry where lawyers are now the CEOs trying to control damages and circumvent the truth and impending suits, where is the truth anyway?
We need to remember that one life is so very important.
Namaste
Posted by: xiangjun | December 22, 2007 10:15 PM
Hello Erin and the rest of the world,
I just found out today, that Erin Brockovich had written an article about Gardasil. I was ecstatic!
Then, when I got here, I saw three posts. My heart fell. For some reason I expected more. So, I am thankful that there are three...and not two.
So, here I see the problem. The problem being...there is not enough creaking and squeaking , to get the oil. The squeaky wheel gets the oil!
I say we all get together and pow~wow over how we can get this potentially deadly drug off the market.
Before more innocents are lost, made barren or harmed.
Pharmaceuticals kill and harm more Americans, with their LEGAL drugs, than all of the illegal drug dealers in the country. The government giving them free hand to do so. (my fingers are rubbing my temples right now...)
I am not afraid to speak the truth or work for a cause.
Pharmaceuticals lying to the public really ruffles my feathers. Pharmaceuticals "SELLING" their toxic vaccines to our young women of tomorrow and today, makes me livid.
In a sense they are training our young to trust them with their lives. I find this atrocity absurd! Beyond my imagination.
We need to get this information out to the public.
Any one who feels the need to contact me...please do. I have started to write articles on my blog. And I would welcome anyone who would like to be a guest speaker on Gardasil. The more articles we get out there, the more we will become someone the public will look to for our advice. That is what the pharmaceutical companies do and we should give them back some of their own medicine (excuse the bad pun).
We can start our own network of articles and papers and blog between our selves and get others to post for us.
We can bombard the American public with information and knowledge.
Let us arm the American public and those world wide with the truth. These companies are pushing their vaccine world wide. One day the effects will be devastating.
This drug was marketed too soon. They will never admit it, nor the fact that it is harmful. If they had the sense of a pet rock it would be off the shelves already. Since they have not done this...we can only assume that they intend to sell as much as they can to the unsuspecting public...which is your daughters, granddaughters, nieces, mothers, wives, friends, even your grandmothers.
Let me know if there is anything that there is that I can do to assist anyone. I might only be one person, but look what an ant, a bee, a lady bug or an elephant can do!
Sincerely,
Sharon Sutley
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
I am posting my wed address so we we can link back to each other. Soon we could have millions of these. Reaching out speading the word. I hope you will leave it up so we can start with even this tiny tread to make a stong rope to hang the enemy!
If you feel the need to pull my url...please leave my comment. I know that I am an aggresive Baby Boomer...but this is my passion! And I know you are too!
http://www.BabyBoomerAdvisorClub.com
Posted by: Sharon/The Baby Boomer Queen | July 21, 2008 11:16 PM