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And I know it's really hard in this country to wrap your head around the idea of not sleeping with everything that moves, but there are actually a lot of people out there who are very discriminating about who they have sex with. And not all of them are religious kooks or anything.
I don't think this is insulting at all. I totally agree (and the was my first reaction upon seeing it) - people in the US can be extremely reckless when it comes to having sex, from who they choose to have sex with to deciding to not use protection. This poster wasn't necessarily talking to anyone here in particular - I took the "your" to be collective, not personal - and quite honestly, the post was spot on.
Would you be more specific about your safety concerns, Redzin? Perhaps you could provide links to the peer-reviewed literature you mentioned earlier in the thread?
What does it matter? People in this thread already have their minds made up anyway. It's not like they'd read it and have an epiphany. I dunno. I made my decision based on internal documents. I stand by it because I can read and comprehend data on file.
I absolutely agree that people should be vaccinated with necessary vaccines. The HPV vaccine simply isn't a necessity.
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When in doubt, check it out: FAQ
The problem with Dalbergue's insistence that Gardasil will not prevent cancer is that Gardasil is excellent at preventing HPV infections and the condition known as dysplasia, which is a precursor to cervical cancer. Detection of early dysplasia is the foundation of Pap smear screening. Since virtually all cervical cancers are caused by HPV and the only way the vaccine will not prevent cervical cancer is if cervical cancer is not caused by HPV, the entire pathway from HPV to dysplasia to cancer would have to be false. The evidence that it is true, however, is overwhelming.
One criticism is that Gardasil only protects against four strains of HPV. That is no longer a valid criticism. Gardasil 9 has been approved by the FDA:
"Covering nine HPV types, five more HPV types than Gardasil (previously approved by the FDA), Gardasil 9 has the potential to prevent approximately 90 percent of cervical, vulvar, vaginal and anal cancers."
The original Gardasil protected against the strains causing about three quarters of those cancers.
Gardasil protects against HPV, vaccinated women are at lower risk to develop dysplasia, and that means they are at lower risk to develop cervical cancer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedZin
I work in the industry and none of my kids (who are teens and early twenties) are vaccinated with it.
I've never met a colleague who let theirs get it, either, though I'm sure there are some.
I've managed to reach my late 40s with a reasonably active sex life (multiple partners over the years) and my HPV screens are clear every single year.
I realize that HPV can cause problems for some people, but my opinion is that this vaccine is more of a question mark in terms of safety.
I approach these things with an eye toward the risk/benefit ratio. I'm not anti-vacc by a long shot. My kids have pretty much every other childhood vaccine, including the one for chickenpox.
What do you perceive the risks of Gardasil to be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by no kudzu
I most definitely am not anti vx. All 4 of my kids are vaccinated against diseases as they should be to attend public school. i have flu and pneumonia shots every year and am set to get shingles shot.
This Gardasil vax is very different to my mind. Childhood diseases are proven killers and without vax spread throughout the community. The Disney measles situation is a good example. But this Gardasil never did sit well with me. It is a big money maker and studies have shown dubious protection...at least relative to risks.
I do not generally trust big pharma. I've benefitted from it sometimes but definitely almost lost my life to it as Premarin almost killed me. That was when all docs were telling all post menopausal women to take HRT and to take it for the rest of their lives. A completely different story now. I know it isn't a vax but it is an example of overhyped benefits of a drug.
To me, the example of Premarin just shows that the medical community is willing to change its recommendations as the science changes. Women do still use HRT. As with any drug, the patient and doctor have to weigh the benefits and risks. Good doctors did that all along.
As far as Gardasil is concerned, you cannot use "dubious protection" as a reason not to take it:
"Four multinational studies were conducted to show how well Gardasil worked in women between the ages of 16 and 26 by giving them either the vaccine or placebo. The results showed that in women who had not already been infected with the type of HPV contained in the vaccine, Gardasil was nearly 100 percent effective in preventing precancerous cervical lesions, precancerous vaginal and vulvar lesions and genital warts caused by infection with the HPV types against which the vaccine is directed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by no kudzu
BTW I've had several doctors (including one just last week) tell me that many cancers- not all- could have been cured by now but the pharmaceutical companies are making so much money off chemo drugs they aren't about to shoot themselves in the foot.
I would not use any of those doctors. In view of how effective the treatment of cancer has become since the 1960s, such a statement is a big enough pile of bovine excrement to fill the Grand Canyon. Chemo cured my kid's leukemia 26 years ago and now it's curing about 90% of the kids with the same type he had.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tia 914
One of my friends from high school had her teenage daughter get it, the girl had serious complications and died.
Please link to the medical case report, because if she died due to Gardasil there will be one. There have been no confirmed deaths from Gardasil.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishiis49
This came about when my daughter was in 7th grade and her pediatrician suggested it...I just didn't feel it was necessary...Ten years later I don't regret my decision...
Let's hope your daughter is not the one to regret she did not have the protection of the vaccine in a few years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
Not anti-vax.
Vaccines are one of the mega game changers in all of human history.
This is an unnecessary vaccine.
Those do exist.
There is a rabies vaccine. You get it? There is a rattlesnake vaccine. You getting that? AIDS vaccine if there was one? I wouldn't.
Don't need to vaccinate for something caused by unlikely exposure or behavior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
You have to vaccinate 20,000 people to prevent one case of cancer. That's ridiculous.
1 in 20 for flu. Reasonable.
1 in 7 for measles. Great! Do it!
Think about these things.
Don't just do stuff bc people say so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
My source is the NIH. And nothing has proven to stop cervical cancer in its tracks as much as routine pap smears.
And I know it's really hard in this country to wrap your head around the idea of not sleeping with everything that moves, but there are actually a lot of people out there who are very discriminating about who they have sex with. And not all of them are religious kooks or anything.
Stan, it disturbs me to hear a physician say these things.
You will have absolutely no control over who your child decides to sleep with. If you think you can, you have your head way up in the clouds.
Your estimate of the NNT for cervical cancer has already been shown to be an error.
The big gap in your thinking is the complete omission of all of the HPV associated cancers that cannot be detected with a Pap smear: all male cancers, including anal, penile, and throat. Anal and throat cancers in women.
Let's not forget plain old warts in all their ugly glory, just waiting to be shared with a partner, or grow like mad during pregnancy and bleed during delivery. Maybe the baby picks up the virus in his throat at birth. Warts that require painful treatment and tend to come back.
Let's get back to that Pap smear. It's abnormal. What's next? Wait. Do more Pap smears. Hope the virus clears and the Pap comes back normal. Still more Pap smears. Pap gets worse? Painful biopsies. Scarred cervix maybe. Weak cervix, threatened miscarriage, stitch in the cervix to hold it closed, maybe preterm delivery, if you are lucky.
Bad dysplasia or early cancer: hysterectomy. Wanted more children? Maybe just a cone biopsy and hope we get it all.
Skip a few Paps or have a false negative: real cancer: hysterectomy, radiation, maybe die. Not die, but no more kids.
Good grief! Is it not better just to never have the HPV at all?
The other Pap issue is that the FDA has approved HPV testing as the primary screening method. No Pap at all. Take the vaccine, the odds are your HPV screen will never show a high risk strain of HPV. The Pap is becoming obsolete.
As long as girls have a pap smear every year and the occasional surgery to remove abnormal cervical cells, genital warts are only an embarrassment. Cervical cancer fatalities only happen when their reproductive health is not closely monitored.
I don't think this is insulting at all. I totally agree (and the was my first reaction upon seeing it) - people in the US can be extremely reckless when it comes to having sex, from who they choose to have sex with to deciding to not use protection. This poster wasn't necessarily talking to anyone here in particular - I took the "your" to be collective, not personal - and quite honestly, the post was spot on.
Condoms do not prevent transmission of HPV. If you have sex with an infected person, you are at risk.
What wonderful news and it should be flooded with other exposures. I know research results are skewed and important results that may negatively effect FDA-approval is left out on purpose. When I saw this idiotic "vaccine" pushed into the market, it became one more unscrupulous drug released into our heavily drugged (since the 1990s) society.
I watched cochlear implants and the development from nearly the beginning to now. It scared the heck out of me. I knew (yes, again) the results were misleading and then I learned they were bogus. My partner and I researched this as best we could over months and we both saw conflicting information posted.
I was in touch with a representative asking serious questions. When I asked her something, she deflected it and told me to look at the beautiful colors they come in (sorry, ended with a preposition). I was furious and reported her. At that time, I was 58 but treated like a three year-old.
I looked at a forum where I literally thought, "What's going on? People are on happy pills and in la-la land." (I didn't realize it at the time but it was owned by one of the three implant companies.) I had the surgery and apparently went on to the forum before passing out early. I honestly don't know why. I made a simple, sympathetic comment to a woman who was afraid of surgery. I agreed with her and that was it. Later, a moderator told me in a la-la way to remove my comment or they would do it for me. I had until 10 pm. I was asleep by 7 pm and my comment was deleted. So, I was reading data-scrubbed information. Companies that run websites can do what they want. This was an obvious case of keeping people in the dark to sell a very expensive product. The result is that now I'm exploring having it removed. I'd rather be deaf than deal with what a very good doctor at a very good hospital did to my ear.
So, bring on the blasted lawsuits and put a pharmaceutical or two out of business. With factual reporting, this would happen on its own. This won't be the greatest scandal of all time but
it could be a nice start.
Your bad experience with cochlear implant salespeople is hardly relevant to a discussion of vaccines.
If you have evidence that any research on Gardasil is "skewed", please share it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
That I posted this is not an indication that I am personally attacking your decision to use this vaccine. However, I bet most people who have chosen to vaccinate their children didn't realize that it is a fairly useless vaccination. When we talk about administering medication to someone, we must always think about the risk and benefit ratio, and whether or not there's any good reason for doing it. These are the things that are always on my mind because of my profession. It's easy to just say what the hell? How can it hurt? But that's not the right way to think about it.
No, it is not "fairly useless". Your personal risk of having HPV or an abnormal Pap is low. For the population as a whole 50% of women will get some type of HPV in their lifetimes. One in four might have an abnormal Pap. That's a lot of women who will end up needing intensive surveillance, biopsies, and potentially hysterectomies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedZin
Put it this way...
All the safety, prescribing, and marketing info you've ever read about ANY prescription drug was approved for your viewing pleasure by people in my line of work.
You wanna keep debating? I guarantee you I know more about this subject than a nurse in a doctor's office whose info came from a vaccines sales rep.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedZin
What does it matter? People in this thread already have their minds made up anyway. It's not like they'd read it and have an epiphany. I dunno. I made my decision based on internal documents. I stand by it because I can read and comprehend data on file.
I absolutely agree that people should be vaccinated with necessary vaccines. The HPV vaccine simply isn't a necessity.
You are claiming insider knowledge that is incompatible with published research. Have you considered becoming a whistleblower? You sound like a lawyer or a package insert writer, not a scientist.
As long as girls have a pap smear every year and the occasional surgery to remove abnormal cervical cells, genital warts are only an embarrassment. Cervical cancer fatalities only happen when their reproductive health is not closely monitored.
The "occasional surgery to remove abnormal cervical cells" hurts.
Warts are uncomfortable and hard to treat. They can cause complications during pregnancy.
The FDA has approved screening for HPV instead of Pap smears. Cervical cancer is all about the HPV. Prevent the HPV, prevent the cancer.
Gardasil is safe and approaches 100% effectiveness.
I've never hated a phrase more than I do "big pharma." Bleh.
This part I made red in this article humorously shows how silly that phrase is. I now spontaneously crack up whenever the phrase "Big Concrete" enters my mind!
"Part of the problem is that some people think that science is unapproachable and too hard to comprehend. It isn’t. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s easy, because it shouldn’t be. Answering questions about the natural universe requires, demands that scientist approach it with the least amount of bias and the most amount of evidence. And sometimes it is complex and nuanced, but why do people give false balance to someone, without the expertise or education in the field, as if they know more about the issue than does the scientist.
To become a world class architect and to design a skyscraper isn’t easy, but we non-architects can observe what we see, and accept that the building isn’t going to topple over in a hurricane. Do we presume to know how the foundation has to be built to support the building? Or what materials are used to give flexibility in a wind, but strong enough to not collapse? Mostly, we don’t, we trust that there isn’t a massive conspiracy to build unsafe skyscrapers because architects are being paid off by Big Concrete to use cheaper materials. We don’t question the architects’s motives or whether there are solid engineering principles, probably outside of most of our understanding, that were employed to make that skyscraper.
It’s the same with science. We can accept scientific principles without doing the research ourselves. But, and it’s a big but, if you want to dispute accepted science, then you have to bring science to the table not a false debate. Science isn’t hard, but it isn’t easy either. You cannot deny basic scientific facts without getting a solid education, opening a scientific laboratory staffed with world-class scientists, and then publishing peer-reviewed articles that can help move the prevailing scientific consensus. You cannot spend an hour or a day or even a week Googling a few websites and then loudly proclaim that the scientific consensus is wrong; no, you need to do the hard work. Until you do, those of us who are skeptics and scientists get to ignore you, and we get to continue with the current consensus."
And if I recall correctly, routine Paps and screenings don't start until age 21... which is several years later than the average teen is sexually active. That's a long time for HPV to go undetected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzy_q2010
The "occasional surgery to remove abnormal cervical cells" hurts.
Warts are uncomfortable and hard to treat. They can cause complications during pregnancy.
The FDA has approved screening for HPV instead of Pap smears. Cervical cancer is all about the HPV. Prevent the HPV, prevent the cancer.
Gardasil is safe and approaches 100% effectiveness.
And if I recall correctly, routine Paps and screenings don't start until age 21... which is several years later than the average teen is sexually active. That's a long time for HPV to go undetected.
Routine pap smears don't have to start that late. That's just a recommendation.
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I now spontaneously crack up whenever the phrase "Big Concrete" enters my mind!