More Reports of Coincidental Collateral Damage
Reported by Barbara Loe Fisher
The reports of HPV vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths continue to roll in, not only to NVIC but also to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (Search HPV4 at: http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.html) newspapers, and television stations.
And the only response that comes from officials at the CDC, FDA and drug companies when perfectly healthy teenage girls collapse into unconsciousness, suffer a massive seizure, get paralyzed or die suddenly after being injected with GARDASIL is the buracratic mantra: “It is a coincidence.”
“I just kept thinking about the good outcomes rather than what could actually happen.” What happened to Crystal Olivera was arm pain so severe that it left her unconscious immediately after a Gardasil shot, something she had never experienced with her hepatitis and meningitis vaccines. “The next thing I know I am on the floor in the fetal position.” Had she known more about Gardasil – “I wish I’d waited a little until it was out in the public more and also that they did more research about the negative side effects.” – Jamie Colby, Fox News (July 11, 2008) SEE VIDEO at http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=2233990&maven_referralPlayli
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“Jessica Ericzon, 17, was “an all- American teenager,” as described by one of her upstate LaFargeville teachers. Last February, she was working on her softball pitches, getting ready for a class trip to Universal Studios in Florida and hitting the slopes to snowboard with her older brother. Then one day, the blond, blue-eyed honors student collapsed dead in her bathroom. It started with a pain in the back of her head. On the advice of her family doctor, Jessie had taken a series of three Gardasil shots. The vaccine, marketed for females ages 9 to 26, is the first found to ward off strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer. Jessie got the first injection in July 2007. After her second shot in September, she complained of a pain in the back of her head, fatigue and soreness in some joints, said her mom, Lisa. On Feb. 20, while on winter break from school, she got her third and final dose of the vaccine. The next night, “she told me the spot on the back of her head was bothering her again,” her mom said. The next morning, Feb. 22, Lisa, a hospital technician, left for work just after 5 a.m., leaving Jessie asleep. Jessie never showed up for the class she was taking at Jefferson Community College. When her mom got home at 3:20 p.m., she found Jessie sprawled on her back on the bathroom floor, with blood spots on her head where it had hit a flowerpot. Jefferson County Medical Examiner Samuel Livingstone is stumped. “She was essentially dead by the time she hit the floor. Whatever it was, it was instantaneous,” Livingstone said. His autopsy found no cause.” – Susan Edelman, New York Post (July 20, 2008)
” Katherine Kimzey got her first injection of Gardasil along with a Hepatitis-A vaccine and a chicken pox booster. She got the second injection two months later, along with the D-TaP vaccination. Six weeks after the second injection of Gardasil, Katherine passed out. “I tried to get up and my neck was stiff, and I couldn’t move it,” the teenager explained. “I couldn’t move at all.” Katherine spent five days in the hospital.
Shannon Nelson, 18, from the Chicago area, got the Gardasil shot and two other vaccines– at the same time. Within a week the soccer star could barely move. “When I went into the hospital I couldn’t walk at all. I had to have a wheelchair. It just got worse each day,” she explained. Nelson spent 23 days in the hospital and while she’s better now the teenager believes one of the vaccines she received is responsible for her illness and her neurologist says it’s certainly possible.
Katherine Kimzey is back on the soccer field in North Texas. But she still has occasional pain and doesn’t know what the future will hold. Thinking about her past experience she says she still worries and so does her mom. Michelle Kimzey says next time; she won’t be so quick to jump on the new vaccine bandwagon. “I think the connection is huge,” she said.
In a statement to CBS 11 News, Merck — the maker of Gardasil — said it has analyzed the reports of paralysis and death, and believes: no safety issue related to the vaccine has been identified.” – Ginger Allen, CBS News 11 – Dallas (July 21, 2008) http://cbs11tv.com/health/Gardasil.cervical.cancer.2.776277.html
“Consumer concerns over safety have not been assuaged by “reassurances from the government,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). “We have heard reassurances about safety before – for example, with the whole-cell pertussis (diphtheria- pertussis-tetanus [DPT]) vaccine in the 1980s,” she said, noting that this was subsequently withdrawn and replaced by an acellular version in the United States in the 1990s. Ms. Fisher has a son whom she believes was damaged by the DPT vaccine 28 years ago, and she has worked ever since as an activist in the vaccine safety field in various capacities, including a 4-year stint as a consumer member of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
In addition, the NVIC has been running its own private vaccine reaction registry for the past 26-years, and it currently has about 140 reports on Gardasil, Ms. Fisher said. “These include reports of injury and death, and we are seeing a pattern of what we have termed ‘atypical collapse,’ ” she commented. “These include cases where a girl suddenly passes into unconsciousness either immediately or within 24 hours of vaccination and then revives feeling weak and unable to speak properly or exhibiting other neurological signs. What we are concerned about is that girls are not aware of this possibility and could be crossing the road or driving a car and suddenly pass out.” Ms. Fisher also outlined concerns about how Gardasil has been studied. She pointed out that very few of the participants in the clinical trials were aged 11 to 12 years, which is the recommended target age for the vaccine. The New York Times reported in 2006 that of the 20,000 trial participants, 1200 were younger than 16 years.” – Zosia Chustecka, Medscape Medical News (August 8, 2008) http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/578110
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