 in Merck’s drafting legislation!
In my reading of the paper, it appeared that the respondents tended to hide behind the fact that Merck donated some vaccine, though there were a few who found Merck’s involvement to be inappropriate.
Women in Government (WIG) received funding from Merck, which some respondents felt was just fine, though opinions did vary on that point. It should come as no surprise that WIG heavily promoted implementation of the Gardasil vaccine.
The investigation documented the extremely disturbing influence that pharmaceutical corporations have in governmental health decisions that affect us all.
Response to Investigation into Merck’s Influence in Government
“Who Profits from Uncritical Acceptance of Biased Estimates of Vaccine Efficacy and Safety?” is a definitive statement regarding Merck’s influence in vaccine policy. Tomljenovic and Shaw state:
… [C]areful scrutiny of Gardasil clinical trials shows that their design, as well as data reporting and interpretation, were largely inadequate.
They go on to delineate that optimism about Gardasil’s clinical benefits rests “on an extremely weak base built on a number of untested assumptions and significant misinterpretation of factual evidence.” They cite these examples:
- The claim that Gardasil will result in a 70% reduction in cervical cancer is made in spite of there being no clinical data to support it.
- The claim that life-long protection is provided by three vaccine doses has no basis in fact, as studies lasted, at most, five years.
- The claim that Gardasil’s adverse effects are minor are supported only by “highly flawed safety trial design”.
- They also point out “evidence of biased and selective reporting of results from clinical trials”.
Their conclusion is:
Keeping in mind that “the primary interest of a pharmaceutical company is developing and selling pharmaceutical product,” one must ask whether rational vaccine policy decisions should be based on conclusions derived from an uncritical acceptance of flawed vaccine safety and efficacy estimates provided by the vaccine manufacturer. Failure to adhere to principles of evidence-based medicine with respect to Gardasil promotion and vaccination policymaking inevitably raises the question of whether we have learned anything from the Vioxx debacle.
Indeed! It most assuredly does look like nothing has been learned from past disastrous destruction of lives by Big Pharma. Just how many times must we go through such agony? The toll Gardasil has been taking is being swept under the table, but the evidence is growing, as Tomljenovic and Shaw have been documenting in their research.
How many more must suffer before we step back from the pharmaceutical juggernaut and refuse to let them manipulate and control our healthcare system?
These articles contain more information on Tomljenovic and Shaw’s research:
- Mechanisms of Aluminum Adjuvant Revealed: Vaccine Risks to Children Clarified
- Gardasil Destroys Girl’s Ovaries: Research on Ovaries Never Considered
- Gardasil Destroys Girl’s Ovaries: It Should Have Been Predicted
- Gardasil: Evidence of Immense Harm
- Gardasil Is Probable Cause of Girls’ Deaths: Brain Histology Study
- HPV Vaccines: Scientists Use Manufacturers’ Data to Prove Lack of Efficacy
- HPV vaccines and cancer prevention, science versus activism, Infectious Agents and Cancer, Lucija Tomljenovic, Judy Wilyman, Eva Vanamee, Toni Bark, Christopher A. Shaw; doi:10.1186/1750-9378-8-6
- Pharmaceutical Companies’ Role in State Vaccination Policymaking, American Journal of Public Health (on Medscape), Michelle M. Mello, JD, PhD, Sara Abiola, JD, PhD, James Colgrove, PhD
- Women In Government Issues State Policy Recommendations for Cervical Cancer Vaccine
- Who Profits from Uncritical Acceptance of Biased Estimates of Vaccine Efficacy and Safety?, American Journal of Public Health, Lucija Tomljenovic and Christopher A. Shaw; doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300837