Cancer death rates are falling steadily, according to the American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics report, Cancer Facts & Figures 2009, and its companion article “Cancer Statistics, 2009,” published in the Society’s CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The drop is driven in large part by better prevention, increased use of early detection practices, and improved treatments for cancer.

Cancer death rates dropped 19.2% among men during 1990-2005 and 11.4% among women during 1991-2005. Cancer incidence rates are also on the decline – they decreased 1.8% per year among men from 2001-2005 and 0.6% per year from 1998-2005 among women.

“A drop of 1 or 2% per year may sound small, but as this report shows, that adds up to 650,000 cancer deaths avoided over 15 years,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, American Cancer Society chief executive officer. “And because the rate continues to drop, it means that in recent years, about 100,000 people each year who would have died had cancer rates not declined are living to celebrate another birthday. That is undeniable evidence of the lifesaving progress that we as a country must dedicate ourselves to continuing.”

ACS researchers estimate that there will be about 1,479,350 million new cancer cases and about 562,340 cancer deaths in 2009. For all cancers diagnosed from 1996-2004, the 5-year relative survival rate is 66%, up from 50% in 1975-1977. That increase reflects improvements in both early detection and treatment.

Decreases in deaths from lung, prostate, and colorectal cancer accounted for nearly 80% of the decline in death rates among men, while decreases in breast and colorectal cancer made up 60% of the decrease among women. Those numbers suggest early detection practices – using colonoscopy to catch colon cancer early, for example — are working, and also reflect improvements in treatment. The decline in the lung cancer death rate among men is due to drops in tobacco use; the lung cancer death rate among women has stabilized after increasing for many decades.

According to the report, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers account for about half of all cancer diagnoses among men; in women, breast, lung, and colorectal cancer account for about half of new cancer cases. Together, these cancers account for almost half of the cancer deaths among men and women.

African-American men have an 18% higher incidence rate and 36% higher cancer death rate compared to white men, according to the report. African-American women are less likely than white women to get cancer, but when they do get it, they’re more likely to die from it.

ACS researchers also noted that lung cancer rates vary greatly regionally, reflecting differences in tobacco use among states. In contrast, rates for other cancers – breast and prostate, for example – tended to be similar across the country.

Each year, ACS researchers include a special section in Cancer Facts & Figures highlighting an issue of cancer research or care. This year, researchers offer the latest information about cancer survivors’ risk for developing a second cancer.

This report was prepared by Rebecca Viksnins Snowden for the American Cancer Society

For more information, see Cancer Facts & Figures 2009.

Reviewed by: Members of the ACS Medical Content Staff

Citation: “Cancer Statistics, 2009.” Published online May 27, 2009 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Corresponding author: Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD, Surveillance and Health Policy Research, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

No matter how the disease manifests in the body, you can find integrative treatments and preventive measures that work.

Acupuncture

For women fighting or recovering from breast cancer, the drug-induced hot flashes could make treatment feel nearly as miserable as the diagnosis. Acupuncture can relieve your hot flashes as well as drugs, without side effects like nausea, decreased libido, and fatigue. Learn more about needling here.

Cancer-proof your diet

Of the more than 1 million Americans diagnosed with cancer each year, roughly 700,000 can blame their condition at least in part on their high-fat, low-fiber diets. But a growing body of research suggests it’s never too late to change your habits. Click here for diet tips and delicious recipes to nourish your body—whether you’re aiming at prevention or already fighting cancer.

Guys: Protect Your Prostates

The American diet—especially what you fellas half-jokingly refer to as “man food”—will do a number on the prostate and can dramatically increase the risk of cancer in this small, but very important gland. See what supplements can counter the risk here.

For more natural ways to conquer cancer, go to our Cancer Condition Center.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Regular readers of the Inconvenient Woman Blog already know that I think the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, is a dangerous and unnecessary drug. I believe that Merck has perpetrated a clever, profitable, but deadly hoax on the public. Merck’s proven ability to buy political cover, their award winning marketing campaign and the FDA / CDC’s complete failure to protect the women and girls of this country will allow the largest transfer of public money to private stockholders in history. To the Merck shareholders HPV has come to stand for “Help Pay-For Vioxx!”

Cervical Cancer is the most treatable and survivable cancer women face. For decades regular PAP testing has given women and their physicians ample time to treat and cure the condition. In the United States less than 4,000 women annually die from cervical cancer. The HPV virus is one of the most common and transient of viruses, that in healthy adults resolves it self with out ever metastasizing into some deadly form of cancer. The women, who died, either did not have access, or chose not to avail themselves to regular preventative health care. At the current rate of Adverse Reaction Reporting, it is likely that more girls will have died from the vaccine than women of cervical cancer.

This article originally appeared in Natural News on Thursday, November 20, 2008 and was written by: Joanne Waldron, a self-titled, and citizen journalist.

What do rat poison and the HPV vaccine have in common?

The answer is a hazardous chemical known as sodium borate. Savvy readers may wonder what a toxin that is commonly used to kill rats is doing in the ingredient list for the HPV vaccine that is currently being pushed on girls as young as nine and is even being considered for men and boys. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t very comforting, especially for new U.S. residents for whom the HPV injection containing sodium borate is now mandated.

What is Sodium Borate?

Sodium borate, a boric acid salt also known as borax, has many common uses. In addition to its use as a rat poison, it is also used in laundry detergents, cosmetics, enamel glazes, flame retardants, and buffer solutions in chemistry. However, sodium borate also has antifungal properties, which means that its probable reason for being in the vaccine is to act as a preservative.

Sodium Borate Banned as Food Additive

Sodium borate is used as a food additive in some countries, but it is now outlawed in many places. For example, one Australian government recall site notes: “Product is Borax (sodium borate) which is a non permitted food additive and is harmful to health.” So, if it’s “harmful to health,” why is it being added to the HPV vaccine?

No Longer Used in Medical Preparations

The U.S. National Library of Medicine states in an article that boric acid is “no longer commonly used in medical preparations.” It’s a good thing, too, considering that the U.S. National Library of Medicine also reports that this substance used to be used to disinfect and treat wounds and that individuals “who received such treatment over and over again got sick, and some died.” In fact, the U.S. National Library of Medicine provides the number for Poison Control for people exposed to this chemical and notes that treatment for those exposed to it may include gastric lavage (stomach pumping), dialysis, and liquids by mouth or IV.

Sodium Borate Poisoning Symptoms Mimic Reactions to HPV Vaccine

Sadly, the information about sodium borate gets even scarier. Another government website article states that exposure to sodium borate can cause convulsions and other ill health effects. Interestingly enough, young girls who receive the HPV vaccine have reported similar symptoms to those that appear in cases of sodium borate poisoning. This particular government site provides the following warning regarding this chemical: “WARNING! HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED, INHALED OR ABSORBED THROUGH SKIN. CAUSES IRRITATION TO SKIN, EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT.” Given this information, is sodium borate really something that should be injected into humans? This is something the reader should carefully consider, along with the previously reported information, before choosing to receive the controversial HPV vaccine.
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About the author

Joanne Waldron is a computer scientist with a passion for writing and sharing health-related news and information with others. She runs the Naked Wellness: The Gentle Health Revolution forum, which is devoted to achieving radiant health, well-being, and longevity.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Consumers can only  hope. Of course if  MERCK corporate lawyers figure out that such an open source platform may lead to a clear chain of custody of the type of information they would rather not have readily available during a trial environment, we will see who prevails, the scientist or the lawyers

Reported by Kevin Davies

March 3, 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO – Merck scientists and executives Stephen Friend and Eric Schadt unveiled their plans for Sage, an open-access platform for sharing and disseminating complex data representing disease biology, in a major announcement at CHI’s Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference last week.*

In a joint presentation, Friend, Merck senior vice president and former oncology chief, and Schadt, an outstanding researcher based at Merck’s Seattle subsidiary Rosetta Inpharmatics, reviewed the successes and outstanding challenges that prompted them, with Merck’s blessing (in the form of money and resources) to entertain a bold new approach to improving the expense, time and productivity of drug development.

The benefits of analyzing complex bionetworks are very good, said Schadt, but “more expensive than any one company can afford.” The vision of Sage was “to create open access, integrative bionetworks, evolved by contributor scientists, to accelerate the elimination of human disease.” An all-star advisory team includes Nobelist Leland Hartwell, Sir David Lane (A*STAR Singapore), Navigenics co-founder Dietrich Stephan, Merck research chief Peter Kim, Yale’s Rick Lifton, and John Wilbanks (Science Commons).

“We need massive amounts of information appropriately integrated to build models that are predictive,” said Schadt. “Scientists across the globe involved in different areas of research need to be actively engaged in accessing these networks and contributing information back.”

The transition from a linear to a network mindset would require the generation of coherent datasets, the development of predictive models to design novel therapeutic approaches, and the leveraging of social networks and other means to foster a contributor network. “Watching the trends of public data access, we anticipate a transition of disease biology into the precompetitive space,” said Schadt. Friend added, “The concept of making disease biology a pre-competitive space is… something that we feel in the long run has an opportunity [to succeed].”

Schadt said Merck’s leadership had recognized an opportunity where donating some of its data into the public domain, forming an open access platform that will emerge from an incubator phase, would provide a potentially significant long-term understanding of disease biology.

As for why scientists should include their own data, Friend said, “picture chemistry, picture physics. The people who were originally trying to mix compounds didn’t get very far until they found molecular structures… This is the analogy for what’s going to happen in biology.” New representations of disease allow for data to be shared and layered.

The hardest part in making Sage successful may not be the technology, Friend concluded. “It’s either going to be … our institutions … that have a certain culture about what we do with data. Or it’s going to be the clinicians,” who aren’t used to presenting clinical data using defined standards.

Decade of Discovery

Over the past decade, Friend said Merck has introduced numerous bold technologies that have been successful to a degree. Widescale RNA expression profiling in tumors (in conjunction with the Netherlands Cancer Institute) led directly to the development of Mammaprint and Oncotype diagnostic tests for breast cancer metastases. But such measurements are confounded by multiple variables, making it impossible to infer causality.

Merck also championed whole-genome RNA interference (RNAi) screening. “Often we use it to choose what drug should be combined with what standard of care, and what patient is likely to respond to what therapy,” said Friend, such as identifying gene networks that influence the activity of cisplatin. But heterogeneity of samples made it almost impossible to put the results into context. “It’s like looking at a single frame in “Slumdog Millionaire” and going, Ah, that’s what that movie was about,” he said.

A third initiative, beginning around 2002, was to merge databases of clinical information and genetic information. Merck forged collaborations with European and Chinese cancer institutes, as well as the Moffitt Cancer Center, which enables Merck researchers to direct patient selection in clinical trials based on molecular signatures in the database. But Friend said that the volume of disease data amounted to “a clinical/genomic Tower of Babel” problem.

More recently, Merck has been riding the success of Schadt’s team in Seattle, which has taken major steps to harness the explosion of data and analyze biological networks to predict the physiological state of the system. “Drug companies were betting the farm on seeing things correlated with disease and beautiful patterns of expression and then developing drugs, without having any real idea of the casual nature of those patterns,” said Schadt. The key was to leverage DNA information and environmental effects. “To be competitive in the future and to impact human health, we must become masters of information,” Schadt said, displaying a picture of Aria, the all-seeing master computer from the film Eagle Eye.

Ed’S NOTE: Eric Schadt will keynote the 2009 Bio-IT World Expo on Tuesday, April 28.

*CHI’s Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference. San Francisco, February 23-26, 2009.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

WASHINGTON  The Food and Drug Administration on Friday unveiled a report listing 20 drugs that the agency is investigating for potential side effects, as part of a new policy to warn patients and health-care professionals as early as possible.

The list includes a wide array of drugs, from Eli Lilly & Co. s antidepressant Cymbalta to Purdue Pharma LPs painkiller Oxycontin. It also addresses a range of adverse reactions, including cardiac arrest, cancer and Purple Glove Syndrome, which can result in patients having their arms amputated. (See the FDA s list of drugs that are under investigation.)

The FDA has already sent out warnings about a handful of the drugs on the list. The report lists TNF blockers  such as Johnson & Johnson s Remicade  as being potentially associated with cancer in children. In June, the FDA said it was investigating the possible link. TNF blockers target a compound known as tumor necrosis factor, which is overproduced in many patients with inflammatory diseases like arthritis and Crohn s.

But there appear to be new ones, too. The report lists Biogen Idec Inc. and Elan Corp. s multiple-sclerosis treatment Tysabri as potentially being associated with skin cancer. Medical journals have reported cases of melanoma in patients taking Tysabri, but the FDA hasn t previously said it was investigating the drug for this side effect.

The list, which the FDA will start issuing quarterly, is aimed at giving consumers and health-care professionals early indications of what the FDA is investigating, but it might end up creating more confusion. Indeed, the agency is concerned that people will stop taking a drug inappropriately  because it is on the list, said Paul Seligman, associate director of safety policy at the agency.

The FDA said it alerted companies whose drugs appeared on the list prior to it being made public  several companies said they received word late Thursday  and intends to give drug makers a heads-up in the future as well.

Drug makers said they support the FDA s additional efforts to be transparent about drug safety, but some expressed concern that the information was being communicated to patients without context and wondered about what patients might do with the information.

It is very, very important that patients and their physicians understand the benefits and the risks of the drug. To speak about one without the other could have an impact on patient perception of their medications,  said Tony Jewell, a spokesman for AstraZeneca PLC, whose psychiatric medication Seroquel made the list for the possible safety concern of overdose due to confusing sample-pack labeling.

Companies also cautioned that just because a drug is posted on the site doesn t mean a causal relationship has been identified, and it is also risky if patients go off their medications without consulting a physician.

The FDA s intention is for patients and doctors to use the list to be aware of potential adverse events and to encourage them to report any problems. The list doesn t represent a comprehensive list of drugs the FDA is investigating, the FDA s Mr. Seligman said.

The report is generated from the agency s adverse-event-reporting database. That compilation consists of voluntary reports from patients and health-care professionals, and is widely considered to capture only a fraction of the actual adverse events associated with any given drug.

Mr. Seligman said the FDA is hopeful the quarterly reports will encourage people to report adverse events.

Write to Jared A. Favole at jared.favole@dowjones.co

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

…Probably big words like PROFIT, LOBBYING, POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY, CALLOUS DISREGARD…

Women in Government Cervical Cancer Report 0307

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

There Is An Alternative Way.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental,

food and lifestyle factors.

5.. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow,

gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumour size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not

result in more tumour destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence

the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

What Cancer Cells Feed On:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk, cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to no urish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try

and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties.Water-

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic build-up.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

but only if you get a good night’s sleep

After my last week’s rant about focusing efforts to PREVENT cancer as well as CURING cancer, I was please to review a research study that did just that! The study examined the link between exercise and cancer risk, paying special attention to whether or not getting adequate sleep further affected a women’s cancer risk.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls sleep loss a growing and as yet an under-recognized public health problem, saying Americans are getting less and less slumber. The CDC said the percentage of adults reporting sleeping six hours, or fewer, a night increased from 1985 to 2006. In previous studies reported in “The Inconvenient Women”, the rates of “short duration sleep” are even higher in the female population.

A resent National Cancer Institute study, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, reported that physically active women, who slept less than seven hours nightly, had a 47 percent higher risk of cancer than those who got more sleep.

James McClain, Ph.D., MPH, cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study, said it is unclear exactly how getting too little sleep may make one more susceptible to cancer, but getting adequate sleep has been long associated with maintaining good health. “We think it’s quite interesting and intriguing. It’s kind of a first look into this. It isn’t something that has been widely studied,”, said McClain.

“Greater participation in physical activity has consistently been associated with reduced risk of cancer incidence at several sites, including breast and colon cancers,” said James McClain, and “Short duration sleep appears to have opposing effects of physical activity on several key hormonal and metabolic parameters, which is why we looked at how it affected the exercise/cancer risk relationship.”

The Maryland-based study involving 5,968 women, aged 18 years or older with no previous cancer diagnosis, confirmed previous findings that people who engage in regular physical activity are less likely to develop cancer. The women completed an initial survey in 1998 and were then tracked through the Washington County Cancer Registry and Maryland State Cancer Registry. McClain and colleagues followed the women for almost 10 years to determine the association between physical activity energy expenditure, sleep duration and incidence of overall breast and colon cancers.

First incidence of cancer occurred among 604 women, 186 of which were breast cancer cases. According to McClain, sleep duration altered the association between physical activity and cancer risk among this population. In terms of the amount of physical exercise the women got per week, researchers found that sleep appeared to play an important role in cancer risk.

Even though the exact mechanism of how exercise reduces cancer risk isn’t known, researchers believe that physical activity’s effects on factors including hormone levels, immune function, and body weight may play an important role.

“Short duration sleep” increases all levels of health risk

Sleep experts say chronic sleep loss is associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking.

Source Document:

McClain J. #B145. Presented at: AACR Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; Nov. 16-18, 2008; Washington.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

A friend sent me this image yesterday, with the message, “From her cute lips to God’s ear.”

I smiled and sent the e-mail on to my writing partner, Leslie. But last night, as I fell asleep, I thought about the e-mail’s real message.

I asked myself, “Why do we keep looking for “Cures” in our various “wars against (name of disease here)?”

Of course we want to heal and save our moms, grandmothers, sisters and daughters from Breast Cancer, but what are we doing as a society to PREVENT Breast Cancer in the first place?

I realize that we have learned much of what to avoid, and what to embrace to remain Cancer free from the all of the past and current Cancer research. I am grateful for that research and to those who contributed ‘time, talent and treasure’ to vanquish a disease that has taken so many of our beloveds.

Maybe I’m just ready to think about the issue differently…ready to switch the problem around 180 and look at the situation as an opportunity for change. What if we women were able to refocus our intention from being ‘at war’ with a deadly enemy, to being ‘in harmony’ with our body and our planet?

Just maybe, by living in peaceful accord with our feminine cycle, and all the other natural cycles of Mother Earth, our bodies would find the balance to heal. Perhaps living in synchronicity with nature would prevent illness? I don’t know, but living in alignment with your natural cycle can’t hurt, and being at war with Mother Nature has proven to be a failed strategy.

I vote for a peaceful, gentle approach to appreciating the wonder of the female cycle and just maybe we could reach that state of balance before our little lady “Grows Boobs”.

Think of just one thing you can do for your self to live within your feminine cycle.

Just one, it is a start.

Live gently on this earth and treat your body with love and understanding.

Be as kind to your self as you are to others.

Love yourself and appreciate the miracle of your body, mind and spirit. Laugh, feel your inner joy, if only for a moment, it is a start.

I would love to credit the creative team who developed this thought-provoking image, but the e-mail did not include a credit line. If some one knows, please let me know so I can thank them for their creativity in my Blog.

My best hope for the little girl in the photo that she grows up with healthy boobs, a vibrantly healthy body and the spirit to be an Inconvenient Woman.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Gardasil® Deaths, Gardasil® Side Effects, Gardasil® Paralysis -

Is the HPV Vaccine Given to Prevent Cervical Cancer Causing More Medical Problems?

A vaccine designed to prevent cervical cancer is coming under fresh scrutiny amid thousands of complaints linking it to a range of health problems.

Gardasil® has been the subject of 7,802 “adverse event” reports from the time the Food and Drug Administration approved its use two years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Girls and women have blamed the vaccine for causing ailments from nausea to paralysis — even death. Fifteen deaths were reported to the FDA, and 10 were confirmed, but the CDC says none of the 10 were linked to the vaccine. The CDC says it continues to study the reports of illness.

Gardasil prevents the spread of human papillomavirus, known as HPV — a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer in a relatively small number of girls and women.

The vaccine’s manufacturer, Merck & Co. Inc., says it has distributed more than 26 million Gardasil® vaccines worldwide, including nearly 16 million in the United States. It estimates that 8 million girls and women have received the vaccine in the United States since June 2006. V

Two girls allege in court that the vaccine made them sick.

One — Jesalee Parsons of Broken Bow, Oklahoma — got the shot at age 13.

Jesalee’s lawyer, Michael McLaren, said she got the shot on February 27, 2007 and soon developed a fever and felt pain. The next day, he said, Jesalee felt pain in her chest and abdomen.

Her mother, Laura Parsons, said Jesalee spent weeks in the hospital and underwent two surgeries after developing pancreatitis. She says the federal government should have studied the drug more before approving its use.

“I just feel let down by the government,” Parsons said.

Merck says it could be a coincidence that the girls got sick after receiving the vaccine.

The company said in a statement that an adverse event report “does not mean that a causal relationship between an event and vaccination has been established — just that the event occurred after vaccination.”

Merck said it would continue to evaluate reports of adverse reactions. It said it “updates product labels with new safety information as appropriate.”

Watch more on complications linked to Gardasil »

For Full Article and more video go to:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/07/07/cervical.cancer.vaccine/

A sincere thank you to major media outlets, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, for following and reporting the Gardasil® adverse events and asking probing questions about the safety and effectiveness of this aggressively-marketed Merck product.

©2012 An Inconvenient Woman. All Rights Reserved.