gardasil adverse events Archives - Page 2 of 2

One Less After Gardasil

Published on May 2, 2013

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Imagine for a moment having an outgoing, vibrant daughter, just turned 21 years old – her whole life ahead of her. She’s a bright, outgoing, athletic, college student, kind and compassionate. She has hopes and dreams just waiting to be fulfilled. No parent could ask for more. All parental bias aside, this was our daughter, Brittney, before Gardasil.

When Brittney received her first Gardasil injection in June of 2007, she was told that the only real risk involved was the possibility of her having a small seizure shortly after the shot was administered. She did not react within the 15-minute window, during which the medical staff monitored her. She thought she had nothing to worry about. She admitted later, after she took the first dose, that the doctor had told her she could get the HPV viruses that cause cervical cancer through a lab accident at college, (where her blood might mingle with someone infected). She had been in a lab accident just a few months previous, so the fear of being infected was immense.

When she passed out the next morning on our family room floor, she got up wondering what had happened. Britt chalked it up to the possibility of being dehydrated. She had been quite active for several months. Several years before she had fainted from dehydration, so she didn’t think much of it. She was so unconcerned she didn’t even mention the incident until over a week later. By this point, she had experienced two other unusual episodes.

The next incident occurred nine days after her HPV vaccine injection. She had what we now know was a partial seizure. Three days later, her legs gave out while she was at a water park. Hammering pain spread up and down her legs for 15 minutes, then disappeared. As a parent, I was beginning to think the incidents were related, but was not sure how they were connected.

Britt is a fighter. She never backed down from anything, but charged head-on until she accomplished her goals. The nagging leg pain and the strange episodes of blacking out were just one more challenge to conquer. She pushed through summer determined nothing would prevent her from achieving her goal to graduate college and pursue a dream of becoming a singer/dancer.

Sometime mid-July, our doctor reassured us that what Brittney was experiencing had nothing to do with Gardasil. We were relieved – at least we could relax on that score…

In July, we took Britt to Myrtle Beach for a belated 21st birthday celebration. During this week, Brittney began to lose control of her emotions off and on. She would be completely normal, then suddenly explode. She would scream at us that we were trying to upset her, or prevent her from living her life. She had never acted this way in her life. Both my husband and I were shocked at her unprovoked outbursts. We spent the entire vacation walking on eggshells when she was present. It seemed the most innocent remark could set her off. The only thing that seemed to soothe her during that week was going to the ocean and walking the beaches.

In August, she had another ‘episode’ as the doctor called them, this time in the company of several college chums. One of them had a sister who experienced many seizures while growing up. She told Britt’s boyfriend at the time that it looked like Britt was having a partial seizure.

Unfortunately, the boyfriend would not accept this reality and shoved an inhaler in her mouth while she was unconscious and depressed it. Britt came around, choking on the aerosol. She told me about the incident later, which was upsetting. She also mentioned the incident to her doctor, but nothing more than a blood test was taken. The results showed that she was a little low on Potassium so she was told to eat more bananas.

In late August 2007, Britt received her second injection of Gardasil – again with no reaction during the 15 minutes of post-vaccination observation. But, within a week she began to have nagging issues with head pressure, like a cap with too tight of a band around her head. Over the next couple of weeks this progressed to the point where she could barely open her mouth because the muscles in her jaw were so tight. She began falling down for no reason. After three weeks, she began to experience blurred, doubled vision. She was extremely sensitive to light of any type. The pressure in her head was so intense, she was passing out daily. She developed a swelling that appeared to be filled with fluid at the base of her skull and along her spine. Along with all of the other symptoms, severe pain was raging through her body. As soon as her doctor examined the swelling, Britt was sent straight to the hospital.

Multiple tests were done, but nothing showed up on any of them. Britt was sent home with a couple of pain tablets. The resident on call felt she had some sort of brain virus and that it would go away in a couple of days.

From this point on, Brittney’s health deteriorated quickly. She couldn’t read anymore because the words seemed to run together or off the pages. She could no longer tolerate light or sound of any kind. We had to speak in whispers when near her or go up to the third floor and speak very softly. Her hearing was so sensitive that she could hear sirens more than three to four miles away and conversations several rooms away. She couldn’t sit in the same room with a television or radio on. Her pain was so bad, she cried all of the time. We bought noise cancelling headphones so she could tolerate trips to the doctor’s office. She had to have wrap around dark glasses – regular sunglasses were not sufficient to protect her from the severe sensitivity to light.

The nightmare didn’t stop there. Her face would sometimes droop to one side like it was sliding off her skull as pressure in her head grew worse. Seizures and stroking migraines began to happen 24/7. Her stomach was upset all the time. She could hardly keep anything down. She lost sensation in her legs and fingertips, she became completely bedridden, and simply longed to die.

Over the next three years, Britt was seen by over 60 doctors, including teams at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic and the University Of Cincinnati Hospital. None of them could help her. She was so sick to her stomach, she could eat nothing but three ounces of protein drink at a time, fed with a baby spoon. Not one doctor suggested we have her stomach looked at. They simply dismissed it as being stressed, over-reacting to life, or a conversion disorder.

Just to give you an idea of what her new life is like, I will briefly touch on a few events:

January to March 2008 – Britt was totally bedridden and seemed to be wasting away. She nearly died before we found a doctor who helped alleviate some of her more severe issues. Unfortunately, she became intolerant of the medications that helped her. She began reacting to everything the doctor gave her. She was sent to many specialists who threw up their hands in frustration at her body’s resistance to treatments.
Early 2009 – We found an alternative chiropractor who recommended Okra Pepsin3 with Multizyme to help settle the lining of Britt’s gastro-intestinal tract. After several months, Britt was able to eat many organic and natural foods for the first time since her second Gardasil injection.
June 2009 – Brittney seemed to improve for a couple of months, including strength, but this didn’t last. By December she had lost all feeling in her legs, plus the head pressure had returned more intensely.
January 2010 – After being seen at Johns Hopkins Hospital Britt’s legs were put into massage bladders. This seemed to relieve some of the loss of feeling – when she left she could feel her upper thighs again. By spring, she was working with a researcher who was willing to try to help with some of Britt’s other issues. He suggested CoQ10, vitamin K Complex, magnesium, calcium and Vitamin D3 supplements. Britt’s sensitivity to light and sound diminished and some of her pain was alleviated. She had a boost of energy for the first time in three years.
April 2010 – A migraine specialist administered pain blocks to the back of her head (scalp) which relieved a great deal of the head pressure, jaw pain and complex migraines. She began to eat better.
June 2010 to January 2011 – Brittney seemed to be doing well. An alternative doctor had made some modifications to her diet that seemed to mitigate some of her more severe symptoms. She began a gluten-free, casein-free, sugar-free diet, avoiding Citric Acid, MSG, artificial preservatives, and mushrooms.
January 2011 – She was exposed to a virus. Her immune system could not handle it. She physically collapsed. The doctor told us that her immune system was crashing and he couldn’t help her. Britt’s grandmother sent over what we thought was homemade chicken with dumplings to boost her health. Brittney gained 60 pounds during the following 24 – 30 hours. We discovered there was Citric Acid in the broth. Nothing would bring the swelling down but time.
May to June 2011 – Her more severe pain symptoms calmed down a bit, but she was still vomiting. Her abdomen and stomach swelled to the point where she looked like she was six months pregnant.
2011 – We finally found a gastroenterologist who was willing to examine Britt’s stomach. She was horrified at what she found – Gastroparesis – a damaged Vagus nerve in Britt’s stomach which prevented normal digestion and emptying of her stomach.

Last summer, 2012, we started taking Britt to another alternative doctor. Gradually Britt began to have a small semblance of the life she had before Gardasil. After months of IV treatments, she has been able to handle a large crowd at a cinema, a very busy restaurant, and even go to the mall briefly. Understand that these events have taken place weeks apart. She still has a long way to go. She has been able to enjoy her favorite music with the speakers “normal” without suffering. She wears her wrap-around low vision glasses only on very bad days. She is able to walk on her own for short distances despite the lack of feeling in her legs.

January to April 2013 – Britt has had a huge setback which we believe was triggered by an LH hormone test. This test was to check the levels of these brain-based hormones to try to regulate them. She felt like the Gardasil nightmare was starting all over again before the hormone was neutralized. Within days of the test she began a slow increase of seizure activity, which built from a couple over a four month period, to multiple, daily events. Some were so severe that her power port shifted under her skin. After four weeks of non-stop seizures, we were able to get her in to the doctor’s office for a much needed IV. It took her nurse three tries to find, then flush the port, before the IV therapy could begin. Her seizure activity has now slowed to a minimum. As long as she stays on track for the IV’s, (basic vitamin/mineral infusions that help boost her immune system, calm physical issues, improve mal-absorption of nutrients), she can maintain much of her homebound activities. There are still periods when we talk with her that she displays signs of confusion, memory loss, and inability to concentrate.

Brittney has been ruled “Disabled” due to residuals of Gardasil by the SSA. She receives some compensation through the SSI which is helping pay her myriad medical bills.

Nearly six years ago, Gardasil changed our lives forever. It has been a nightmare without end watching our daughter suffer through every stage of the past several years. She has literally become ONE LESS!

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix. If you or your daughter has had either HPV vaccine, please take this important survey. The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey.

To take one of our other Real Women. Real Data.^TM surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

Crowdsourced Women’s Health Research

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 12, 2013

20926 views

A dirty little secret in the world of women’s health – there are relatively few data guiding medical decision-making. Indeed, across all medical specialties the auspices of evidence-based are crumbling quickly in the face of open access and open science. Recent reports suggest less than 50% of all medical treatments have any data to support their efficacy. Of that evidence, much could be suspect given the rampant payments from pharmaceutical and device companies to physicians and other decision-makers, plus the well-documented publishing bias and even fraud plaguing the scientific publishing industry.

In women’s health, matters are even worse. Not only are evidenced-based, clinical practice guidelines nearly non-existent in Ob/Gyn (only 30% of practice guidelines based on data) and women still not included in early stage clinical trials in sufficient numbers, but regulatory agencies do not mandate gender analytics for new medications. The result, post market adverse events – think death and disabling injury – are more common in women than men.

Why do women die and suffer from adverse events at a much higher rate than men? Because most medications reach the market without having ever done the appropriate testing or analytics to distinguish why women might respond to said medications differently than men. Even in the lab, male rodents are used about 90% of the time.

What about medications developed specifically for women? These too are poorly understood, mostly because the outcome variables are not focused on the totality of women’s health. For example, it is important that oral contraceptives prevent pregnancy, but it is equally important that they don’t cause blood clots, stroke, heart attack or cancer. And if blood clots, stroke, heart attack or cancer are deemed acceptable risks for birth control (and I don’t think they are), then shouldn’t we know which pills are the most dangerous and which women are most at risk?

One cannot manage, what one does not measure and we don’t measure critical components of women’s health. We also don’t track adverse events or side-effects very well. Question: have you ever reported a side-effect to a doctor? Do you know if he/she reported it to the FDA, the CDC or any other adverse events registry? Probably not, and that is the problem.

If you knew you had a 20 times higher risk of stroke or heart attack for one medication versus another, would you choose differently? I bet you would, but as medical consumers, we don’t have that information. In many cases, those data don’t exist.

That’s where crowdsourced research comes in. At Lucine, the parent company of Hormones Matter, we think the lack of data in women’s healthcare is unacceptable. We know that the larger companies who sell these products have no motivation to gather or make public these type of data – too many billions of dollars are at stake – and so, it is up to us, the women who need safe health products, to be the change agents.

The simple act of completing surveys on critical topics in women’s health can and will save lives. Your data will tell a story. Add that to the data from hundreds, and hopefully thousands of other women, from all over the world and from all walks of life and we will be able to determine which medications, devices or therapies work, which ones don’t. We can give women the information needed to make informed medical decisions.

We are currently running four women’s health surveys, but plan on running many more. So check back regularly. If you qualify for any or all, take a few minutes and add your data. If you don’t qualify for these, share these surveys with your friends and family through social media. The more data we can gather, the more clear our medication choices will become.

Health Surveys for Real Women

Oral Contraceptives Survey

Oral contraceptives (birth control pills) are used by 98% of the female population at some point in their lives. They are prescribed for a myriad of reasons unrelated to pregnancy prevention. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don’t. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew which brands of birth control pills worked for which conditions? Better yet, wouldn’t it great if we could avoid the pills that didn’t work, made a particular condition worse or had a higher than average side-effect profile? Take this survey if you have ever used oral contraceptives. Help determine which birth control pills are safest and have the fewest side-effects. You may save another woman’s life and health.

The Hysterectomy Survey

By the age of 60 one in three women will have had a hysterectomy. Hysterectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures for a range of women’s health conditions. For some conditions, hysterectomy works wonders. While, for other conditions it is only nominally successful. The purpose of the hysterectomy survey is to learn more about why hysterectomy works for some women’s health conditions and not others. We’d also like to learn more about the long term health affects of hysterectomy – does a woman who has had a hysterectomy have a higher or lower risk of other health conditions? Take this survey and help improve women’s health.

The Gardasil Cervarix Survey

Women and their physicians need more data about the side-effects of the HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix. There is a lack of data about who is at risk for adverse events and whether certain pre-existing conditions increase one’s risk for an adverse event. There is also a lack of data about the long term health effects of these vaccines. The purpose of this survey is to fill that data void; to learn more about the risks for, and nature of, adverse events associated with each of the HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix. Take this survey and help improve women’s health options.

The Lupron Side Effects Survey

Leuprolide, more commonly known as Lupron, is the GnRH agonist prescribed for endometriosis, uterine fibroids or cysts, undiagnosed pelvic pain, precocious puberty, during infertility treatments, and to treat some cancers. It induces a menopause like state stopping menstruation and ovulation. It’s widespread use for pain-related female reproductive disorders such as endometriosis or fibroids is not well supported with very few studies indicating its efficacy in either reducing pain or diagnosing endometriosis or other pelvic pain conditions. Conversely, reports of safety issues are mounting, especially within the patient communities. The Lupron Side Effects Survey was designed to determine the range, rate and severity of side-effects and adverse events associated with Lupron use in women.

All surveys are anonymous and participation is voluntary. More information about individual surveys can be found: Oral Contraceptives Survey, The Hysterectomy Survey, The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey.

Visit our Take a Health Survey page for new surveys and updates or better yet, sign up to receive our weekly newsletter for all the latest research and hot topics pertaining to women’s health.

Wal-Mart to Offer HPV Vaccine

by Lisbeth Prifogle, MFA

Published on September 15, 2012

2348 views

Now, in addition to low priced groceries and other goods, your local Wal-Mart will offer nurse kiosks ready to inject you or your child with a variety of vaccines. Wal-Mart is joining other stores, like Walgreens and CVS, in offering walk-through health clinics. According to recent reports, Wal-Mart will be the first to offer the controversial HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix.

At Hormones Matter^TM, we have written a lot about Gardasil and the HPV vaccine questioning its safety. Gardasil: Miracle or Deadly Vaccine?, Is Gardasil Mandated in Your State?, What About the Pap Smear?. For a very heartbreaking story at the dangerous side effects of this story please read A Ruined Life from Gardasil. HPV is a very common virus that many experts believe the body can fight off by itself; with annual pap smear tests a doctor can easily catch and remove any abnormal cells before they become cancer.

The trend of selling direct-to-consumer vaccines, like that of selling over-the-counter medications is time-saving and logical on the one hand, but is troubling on the other, especially with vaccines and medications that have less than stellar safety profiles. Any product sold direct-to-consumer comes with the false presumption that it is entirely safe. Indeed, we have consumer protection agencies to ensure that this is the case with most products. Consumers often mistakenly assume that over-the-counter medications are safe because there is a consumer protection agency protecting their well-being, otherwise the product would not be on the market. Unlike a toy with a choking hazard or a product batch with a chemical contaminant, where the cause and effect are obvious and easily remedied with recall, the direct side-effects or adverse reactions of medications or vaccines are difficult to recognize and more difficult to prove, even under the most regulated of circumstances. When medications or vaccines are sold over-the-counter, it is nearly impossible.

The over-the-counter vaccines effectively remove any ability for physicians, researchers or patients identify side-effects. Selling over-the-counter vaccines is a boon to the pharmaceutical industry, however. With this single move the industry can sell more vaccines, the vaccines become safe in the eyes of the consumer while the industry removes the ability to prove otherwise, and a brilliant, albeit less than ethical, corporate strategy is pushed on consumers.

What do you think, should vaccines be available at the local pharmacy?

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix. If you or your daughter has had either HPV vaccine, please take this important survey. The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey.

A Ruined Life from Gardasil

by Hormone Stories

Published on August 14, 2012

9631 views

This was submitted by Tracy Wolf, the mother of Alexis who has suffered severe side effects from the Gardasil vaccine, this is her story. We thank Tracy for sharing.

In the spring of 2007, Alexis was a happy, shy, and well-adjusted 13-year-old, young lady. She had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in January of 2006, but responded to this in the most positive way. Her doctors were so impressed with how well she dealt with it that they recommended she be put on the insulin pump. Through all of this she worked hard, made the honor roll at school and was educating her fellow students about Type 1 diabetes. Her grandparents wanted her to visit them in Germany, but we were reluctant to do this because of the diabetes. Her doctor felt that she was so responsible and mature compared to other kids her age with Type 1, that she should be allowed to go.

In March of 2007, I took Alexis to see her pediatrician for a wellness check up before her trip to Germany and she received her first Gardasil injection. Alexis asked for it to be given in her leg. We did not notice any side effects at that point. In June, we returned to the doctor’s office right before Alexis left on her trip for the 2nd of 3 injections for Gardasil. Again there were no immediate side effects. A couple weeks later she left for Germany. While she was in Germany most everything went well. Her grandparents said she did act a little strange and out of character for her, but nothing they thought to be too serious.

When Alexis arrived back home from her trip, I noticed that she did not experience jet lag like we all had the last time we all went to Germany. Also, I thought it was odd that she didn’t (or couldn’t) cry when she was told that our 12-year-old dog had passed away while she was gone because she had always been a very sensitive child. As time went on more and more strange behavior, very unlike Alexis, started. She was getting in trouble at school and was unable to concentrate or retain anything she learned. I was taking her to every kind of doctor I could think of, but every test came back normal. Things progressively got worse. At this point her personality had changed 100%. She would go through bits of rage and she would scream at me and call me names and tell me how much she hated our family and me. She said she wanted to be taken to an orphanage and be adopted by another family. At this point doctors and school staff were telling me that Alexis was acting out and testing her boundaries. I argued with all of them. I knew there had to be something medical going on, although doctors and the school were not listening to me. She started having massive panic attacks where her heart would pound so hard you could see her chest moving. Sound and movements bothered her. She would talk about “things looking funny or strange.” she said that peoples faces made her sick to her stomach including people on TV and everyone around her. Often, she would look around as if she didn’t know where she was.

Soon I realized that she was not sleeping at all. She stayed up in her room writing notes all night. The notes were nonsense. She became obsessed with food and would eat anything she could get her hands on while we were asleep. I didn’t realize this at first because she was still being pretty responsible with her diabetes and giving herself the insulin she needed to correct for the food she was eating. One day she stuck her tongue out at me and I noticed a huge bump on the side of her tongue. She had no memory of how the bump got there and it was so big it looked like she had bit off a chunk. Looking back now, I think this is when the seizures started in her sleep.

I took her back to see her endocrinologist and at that point her doctor suggested that we see the in office psychologist thinking that maybe she was having issues being a diabetic. I told her that I really didn’t think it had anything to do with her diabetes, but she wanted us to try. On the second visit with her psychologist, the doctor came to the conclusion that Alexis had been sexually molested while she was in Germany. I was so upset and asked her why she thought this. She said that Alexis talked about seeing nudity in Germany (hello, have you ever been to Europe?) Nudity is everywhere in Germany and I talked to Alexis about this for many hours and on different occasions. Alexis swore to me that nothing like that happened in Germany. I spoke to her grandparents about it and they said that nothing like that happened. Seemed like the only one that believed that really happened was the psychologist (months later she apologized for being wrong, but at that point every doctor after that was subjected to her notes. I was labeled as a “mother in denial”). We were sent to other psychologist and psychiatrist. The only thing they knew what to do was throw anti-psychotic medications at her. Nothing worked, she only got worse. She started throwing up everything she ate, and then couldn’t wait to eat more.

By January 2008, I had taken her in to see her pediatrician again and she was given the 3rd shot in the Gardasil series. Things got much worse after that. Two weeks later we were back at her pediatrician’s office because she had lost five pounds in a week, was throwing up a lot, and not sleeping at all. The doctor sent us to the hospital. Alexis was admitted and spent the next four days getting blood tests, MRIs and a CT scan. Everything came back normal. I was told, once again, that nothing medical was wrong with my daughter. They sent her to Kaseman Behavioral Unit. There she was treated like an animal. They put her on many more anti-psychotic medications, none of which helped her sleep or stopped the vomiting. They told her that if she threw up her food she would not get anything else to eat. They seemed to have no idea how to deal with her diabetes and I had to constantly show them how to deal with it. She was not allowed to be around any of the other children and was told she could only be in her room or walk up and down a short hall. They gave her a bucket for the vomit and on the fourth day two nurses witnessed her eating her vomit from the bucket. After five days of being admitted, they said she was stable and sent Alexis home. That day she was not able to keep any food down and she did not sleep at all that night. The notes were lined up on the banister the next morning when I woke up.

The next day, we were told to take her to a new psychiatrist. We did and the doctor was almost in tears. She had no idea why we were sent to her. She could see right off the bat that she would not be able to help Alexis. She told us that she thought we were getting the run around. We went home and called her pediatrician and begged her to help us. She was reluctant but said she would make some calls and get back to us. We were able to get her into the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital at the University of New Mexico Hospital. This was on a Friday night and their psychiatrist would not be in until Monday so they just tried to focus on getting Alexis to sleep. They gave her high doses of Trazadone and she still didn’t sleep. The next morning I went to see her and she was sitting in a chair in the front room and she was slumped over and drooling and moaning. When I walked in, she slowly raised her head and almost in slow motion said, “Hi mommy.” I got her up and took her to her room and tried to get her to lie down and try to sleep. She started dozing off and I thought Yeah, she is going to sleep! But within five minutes her face clenched as if she were in pain, her eyes twitched, and her mouth filled up with saliva. They noticed right away that Alexis was not going through behavioral issues. When the doctor showed on Monday morning I told her exactly what was happening and while I was telling her, Alexis had another “spell.” The psychiatrist noticed right away that she was most likely having seizures. An EEG was done and they found out she was in fact having seizures that were all concentrated in her frontal lobe, the part of our brain that control our personality. She had been having seizures some time and no one noticed, until just then!

Alexis spent the next six months at UNMH. They did every medical test on her that they could come up with: EEGs, CT scans, MRI’s, 2 spinal taps, muscle biopsy, blood tests were sent out all over the United States, plasmapheresis, IVIG, and then some. Everything came back normal. They determined that she was exposed to a virus and her body made antibodies to attack the virus. However, she had not been sick and had not shown any symptoms of having a virus or even the sniffles. The only virus she had been exposed to was the Gardasil shots. They also determined that she suffered brain damage because of the seizures. She now is testing at a 4th grade level and still to this day is unable to attend school. She has seizure activity every day and night, almost constantly. She is in constant pain and no medication seems to help. Every day more symptoms pop up. She has numbness in her arms and legs, headaches, horrible pain, loss of bladder control (now she has to wear adult diapers), constipation (and when she is able to have a BM they are the size of a grapefruit and plug the toilet every time), vision problems, memory loss, brain fog, chronic fatigue, leg cramps, back pain, dizziness, she repeats the same things over and over again with no memory of having said it a million times, she is unable to retain anything that is said to her or that she sees, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, and more

In 2009, she spent four days in the local Presbyterian hospital for high heart rate and super high blood pressure. All the tests came back normal. In November, I took her to Barrows Neuro in Phoenix. She spent six days attached to an EEG machine and under went another MRI. All the doctors were baffled and don’t know what to do. Her neurologist is very experienced and has never seen anything like what Alexis is going through.

We are all heart broken that a girl who showed so much promise three years ago, had her life as we knew it taken away. She will never be the same. We are pretty much out of options and our next step is getting an adult neurologist to look over her case to see if she would be a candidate for Vagus Nerve Stimulation or VNS therapy. This would mean having surgery to implant a device in her chest that would send impulses to her nerve endings in the base of her skull to try to stop the seizures. Alexis is scared and does not want to have this done, but I feel we have no other choice because none of the anticonvulsants are working.

Lawyers have refused to include Alexis in their class action lawsuits against Gardasil because her first symptoms were more “behavioral”. We now know that her behavior change was due to seizures. I spend most of my time trying to get Alexis special services that our government provides to people who have traumatic brain injuries, but I was told Alexis is on a waiting list of over 47,000 people in New Mexico and it could take up to 10 years for her to receive any benefits because there is no money to support the people in need. This is such a horrible nightmare that I wish we could all wake up from, but unfortunately this is real, very real.

Thank you for taking the time to read Alexis’ story. Some of these things are very hard to talk about and probably hard to read as well, but we all need to know what is happening to our children and be able to make educated decisions.

Alexis will be featured in the upcoming documentary One More Girl.

To read an update on Alexis’ condition: A Day in the Life of Alexis Wolf: Six Years After Gardasil.

Participate in Research

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix. If you or your daughter has had either HPV vaccine, please take this important survey. The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey.

To take one of our other Real Women. Real Data.^TM surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

Is Gardasil Mandated in Your State?

by Lisbeth Prifogle, MFA

Published on July 30, 2012

4677 views

Last week I reported on the controversy of the Gardasil Vaccine produced by Merck (it is important to note that GlaxoSmithKline also makes an HPV vaccine called Cervarix). Many women left comments which confirmed my statements and research with personal stories of their once healthy daughters who are now sick and disabled from this vaccine. This week I will look at which states are mandating that school children get the vaccine and one state that passed legislation for the vaccine to be given to children as young as 12 years old without parental consent.

As I stated in my op-ed piece on the Affordable Health Care Act, I am a libertarian. One of my main concerns about the government controlling our health care is mandated vaccines. To those who think that this could never happen, the simple fact is it’s already happening in our schools and in our military. While I’m a proud Marine, I’m ashamed of the fact that the government has been known to conduct ethically questionable experiments on our troops. In my opinion, vaccines are one of those experiments and rather than do they protect the patient, they ask will the people blindly take them?

While in the Marine Corps, I was vaccinated against every possible disease that there is a vaccine for not once, but twice, sometimes even three times (somehow my shot records never made it to my medical records, which I understand is common in the service). This includes the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. When I say it was mandated, I do in fact mean that I was forced to get these vaccines. Per the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) my body was property of the US Government when I was in the service. You probably think I’m kidding; I’m not. During safety briefs before summer holiday weekends we were told to wear sunscreen (check out the dangers of sunscreen here) because if we got a sunburn while off-duty we could be charged with destruction to government property. Now, that was a little extreme and I don’t know anyone who was actually charged over a sunburn (although it wouldn’t surprise me), it was still true – we were government property. I tried to avoid the Smallpox vaccine and successfully did until we were at the airport terminal boarding the plane for Iraq, I was informed by our unit’s corpsman administering it, “If you don’t get this shot you can’t deploy.”

I sarcastically replied, “Okay,” only to turn around and see the Executive Officer (XO) standing behind me.

Not amused by my sarcasm, he said, “If you don’t get the shot I will charge you with disobeying orders Lieutenant.” He was dead serious.

Thankfully, I have not had any major complications (although the more research that I do, I think I have some ongoing side effects from the Gardasil vaccine).

State Mandates

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) school vaccine requirements are determined by individual states, a right which might be revoked now that states are mandated to enforce individuals to purchase insurance per the Federal government.

In 2006, the Michigan Senate was the first to introduce legislation (S.B.1416) requiring girls entering sixth grade to have the vaccine. The bill was not enacted. According to NCSL, “Since 2006, legislators in at least 41 states and D.C. have introduced legislation to require the vaccine, fund or educate the public about the HPV Vaccine and at least 21 states have enacted legislation, including Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.”

In February 2007, Texas Governor bypassed state legislation and made an executive order that all females going into the sixth grade had to get vaccinated with Gardasil. In May 2007, state legislators introduced and passed the bill H.B. 1098 to override the executive order.

The Virginia legislature also passed a school vaccine requirement for Gardasil in 2007. To see what legislation related to the HPV vaccines and information has been introduced to your state, see NCSL’s chart here.

No Parental Consent Necessary

Can it get worse than mandating parents to give their kids a vaccine that causes severe side effects and does nothing more than an annual pap can do to prevent cervical cancer? Of course it can. On January 1, 2012, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill AB 499 into law. It states:

“Existing law authorizes a minor who is 12 years of age or older to consent to medical care related to the diagnosis or treatment of an infectious, contagious, or communicable disease if it is related to a sexually transmitted disease. This bill would additionally authorize a minor who is 12 years of age or older to consent to medical care related to the prevention of a sexually transmitted disease. Time-critical preventive services for sexually transmitted diseases include the hepatitis B vaccine, post-exposure prophylactic (PEP) HIV medication (which must be administered within 72 hours of exposure), and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which, if given prior to exposure, may significantly reduce the risk of certain cancers.”

How did we get here?

This is the easy part. Look at who is benefiting the most -follow the money. In this case, the makers of the vaccines are obviously going to benefit if their product is mandated by use of all children the age of 12-26 years old. Similar to when Texas Governor Perry passed the law to mandate the HPV shot shortly after Merck contributed $6000 dollars to his campaign (amongst other ties to Merck); in California, Merck donated $39, 500 to legislators voting yea on AB 499 according to Cal Watch Dog.

The cost of one shot is $120 and the vaccine is a series of three given over the course of a year. That’s $360 for every girl and boy who gets the vaccine. In most states insurance is mandated to cover this vaccine and there are numerous state and federal programs for those who do not have insurance. With all the side effects and even deaths from this shot, why wouldn’t politicians put those tax dollars to use providing un/under-insured women access to pap smears, a screening test that can catch HPV before it develops into cancer far enough in advance that fairly simple steps can be taken to stop cancer before it even develops? Why, because Merck and GlaxoKlineSmith can’t profit from preventing cancer that way. And how much has Merck made from the Gardasil vaccine? According to CNN Money, Gardasil grossed over $1.1 billion in the first nine months on the market. Unfortunately for Merck, the initial sales momentum has flattened out and is declining. The American public are obviously not buying this vaccine, so Merck and others are going to legislators and to have it mandated instead.

What can you do?

As I always say, GET INVOLVED. Get educated. Complacency, apathy and ignorance are how we got to this point (and Citizens United). Be wary of a bill that puts a private company’s profits above the safety and well-being of the individual, especially one that involves the health of your child. It is incumbent upon all of us to assess the safety and risks of any medication or vaccine before taking it.

Hormones Matter^TM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix. If you or your daughter has had either HPV vaccine, please take this important survey. The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey.

Further Reading:
Gardasil: Miracle or Deadly Vaccine?
What about the Pap?

Hormones Matter

Where health, hormones, and a whole bunch of other stuff, make sense.

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One Less After Gardasil

Crowdsourced Women’s Health Research

Health Surveys for Real Women

Oral Contraceptives Survey

The Hysterectomy Survey

The Gardasil Cervarix Survey