Scientists have recently shown the sexually transmitted disease known as Human Papilloma Virus to be a major cause of cervical cancer. The new vaccine against HPV, Gardasil, is being touted as a kind of wonder drug that will drastically reduce incidences of cervical cancer in women.
The governor of Texas has ordered all sixth grade girls in the state be given the vaccine, and bills recently introduced in Florida, Virginia, Illinois and Indiana would require the vaccine be administered to all girls between the ages of 11 and 12. It's no different from the polio vaccine, right? Wrong.
Protecting young women against a common virus known to cause cervical cancer is an exciting idea. However, Gardasil is a new vaccine with unknown long-term effects. Mandating its use is downright irresponsible. People who trust that a new, relatively untested vaccine won't cause problems down the line should be allowed to use it, but lawmakers are making guinea pigs out of young girls by forcing them to be injected with it.
Approval from the Food and Drug Administration means nothing in this day and age. Drug companies have been allowed to pay the FDA to review and approve their drugs since the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, which provides a large financial incentive to not stand in the way of drug company profits.
Consider, Merck is the only company allowed to make Gardasil, and therefore is the only one profiting from it. Why is it assumed they will make every effort to ensure the safety of their product? Merck is the maker of Vioxx, an arthritis medication that killed tens of thousands of people before someone woke up and started slamming the company with lawsuits.
According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 20 percent of the FDA scientists surveyed stated FDA decision makers had asked them to alter or exclude certain conclusions or even to provide inaccurate or misleading information to the public.
In 2005, FDA scientist Dr. David Graham was prevented by senior officials in the FDA from presenting his negative findings on Vioxx to the FDA advisory committee. The FDA also tried to suppress information linking certain antidepressants to suicidal tendencies in children.
Now the FDA is trying to convince the American public Gardasil, a Merck company product, is perfectly safe. Where are the studies examining the long-term effects of the vaccine? Merck can't even say how long the vaccine is effective for, due to its novelty. Lawmakers who are trying to mandate the use of the vaccine are literally forcing parents to allow their daughters to be used in a wide-scale medical experiment.
Doesn't anybody remember the wonder drug diethylstilbestrol (DSE)? The FDA approved its use by pregnant women in 1947 to help protect them against miscarriages and, despite mounting evidence through the years of health problems and an unprecedented rate of a rare vaginal cancer in young women whose mothers had used DES while pregnant, the FDA didn't publish an alert against its use until 1971.
The National Institute of Health didn't convene for an examination of long-term effects of DES until 1992. Researchers today continue to uncover exceedingly high rates of breast cancer, reproductive abnormalities and immune system deficiencies in those who were affected by DES, either by taking it directly or by exposure to it in utero.
Forget all the ridiculous arguments of ""encouraging promiscuity"" that some conservatives are blustering about. When is someone going to step forward and demand tests to prove unequivocally that Gardasil won't hurt anyone before it is inflicted on millions of young women across the country?
