About the author

(NewsTarget) Some people may remember the article about young Brittany who became paralyzed shortly after receiving the HPV vaccine. However, Brittany is not the only young girl to experience such a problem. A fourteen-year-old girl named Jessica had a similar experience after receiving the vaccine, as reported by a news story inby Jo Rafferty.According to the article, just eight days after receiving the vaccine, Jessica was hospitalized and diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome. Paralyzed and unable to walk after the vaccine, Jessica (like Brittany) was an active, athletic girl prior to receiving it. The article reports that a family friend named Tondra Vees was told by the family that the girl's neurologist said that it was the HPV vaccine that had caused her paralysis.Unfortunately, one girl's experience was much worse. In an article entitled "One Less," inby Tom Grant, it is reported that a nineteen-year-old young lady named Brooke Petkevicius collapsed against a wall and later died two weeks after receiving the first dose of the HPV vaccine. She was also an active young woman who was preparing to run in a marathon and was a straight-A student with a long list of accomplishments. However, her autopsy makes absolutely no mention of the Gardasil vaccine ; it merely states that she died of a pulmonary embolism or blood clot. Interestingly, the article says that the CDC cites the fact that the girl happened to be taking birth control pills, which increases the risk of blood clots, as the reason for her death.Talk about "natural selection" in reverse! That's not to say that it isn't a tragedy when any young life is taken away needlessly. It most certainly is. However, it is hard not to wonder what such an obviously talented young lady may have accomplished had her life not ended so prematurely. If the CDC really believes that the birth control pills alone were the cause of the girl's death, one has to ask why young girls aren't being strongly warned that death is a possible "side effect" of taking birth control pills.Perhaps the CDC really believes that it's just a mere coincidence that this girl died shortly after receiving the HPV vaccine. Did it ever occur to anyone that the problem may have something to do with taking birth control pills in conjunction with receiving the vaccine? Did anyone ever bother asking what brand of birth control pills the girl was using? Did they try to determine when she took the birth control pills in relationship to when she had the vaccine? Intelligent folks can probably think of many, many other questions that need to be addressed.Shouldn't the public at least be made aware of all of these people who "coincidentally" drop dead or suffer adverse reactions so shortly after receiving the vaccine? Perhaps the CDC has chosen to adopt a "wait and see" attitude about all of this and will only alter their recommendations if the body count starts to climb. Why isn't the public demanding more answers about this vaccine? It is hard to comprehend the cavalier attitude of some people about girls dying shortly after receiving the HPV jab. Many times those same people speak out against murderers and criminals being given lethal injections but do not share the same concerns about young girls. What's wrong with this picture?In addition to telling Brooke's sad story, Grant's article also has numerous other accounts of reactions reported by other girls. In fact, Grant reports that another girl died of a blood clot just three hours after receiving the vaccine. Three hours. Just a coincidence? Really?To put it in a different perspective, consider this analogy. Suppose you install a new piece of software on your computer. Three hours after installing the software, the computer crashes. Would it be reasonable to consider the possibility that the new software created or contributed to the problem? Suppose the support tech simply said, "Oh, it must be due to your operating system. Your operating system (fill-in-the-blank with your favorite operating system) is known to crash sometimes. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with that new software you just installed."Well, truthfully, while the problem may have had something to do with the operating system, any computer scientist worth his salt is going to start asking all sorts of probing questions about the type of software that was recently installed. No self-respecting computer geek would simply say, "Well, we never had any problems with any software before when we conducted beta tests. Therefore, the problem must be your operating system." Of course not. That computer geek is going to try to figure out if there are any incompatibilities between the software that was installed and the operating system of the computer it was installed on and the interactions between any of the other programs.Unfortunately, the human body is a whole lot more complex than a computer. If someone drops dead or gets paralyzed after a vaccine, you can't just do a "restore" as you could with a computer. Just like each individual's computer has lots of unique pieces of software running on it, every young girl has her own set of unique characteristics and circumstances. Some girls may be taking birth control pills. Some girls may be taking numerous other medications and over-the-counter drugs. Each young girl has many different things that are unique about her. How many of these permutations and combinations have been tested? Nobody wants you to ask that question!Nor do they want you to ask where the testing occurred. According to CorpWatch.org , Merck outsourced trials for the Gardasil vaccine to a company called JayaJan Pharmaceutical Research in India. They report that it is much cheaper to get CROs (Contract Research Organizations) to conduct research in other areas of the world, and regulations in some areas are much more lax. Apparently a Merck spokesperson named Amy Rose refused to specify exactly how many of the trials for the HPV vaccine were conducted by CROs or what Merck's role was in overseeing these trials. CorpWatch.org was unable to get her to comment on what percentages of the subjects of the trials were from Third World countries.There are some obvious concerns about trials that are conducted by CROs. For example, CROs may consider that trials with results that will make the drug companies happy will generate repeat business. Also, if adverse reactions were to occur during a trial, there would likely be much less of a chance of anyone digging into it too deeply if the subjects were all from a foreign country. An excellent, must-see film starring Ralph Fiennes calledexplores the idea of drug trials being conducted in Africa, and it certainly leaves the mind reeling.Another major concern is that some doctors don't seem to want to report the adverse effects of this vaccine. According to a news report , Barbara Loe Fischer, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, gets calls from parents claiming their doctors won't report adverse reactions to the HPV vaccine. What's up with this? Why wouldn't any reputable doctor want to make sure that any reaction possibly tied to the vaccine is correctly reported? Like trained monkeys, they recommend any new vaccine that the CDC endorses and don't want to "stir the pot" by reporting the side effects experienced by their patients.Meanwhile, the ad campaign for Gardasil has been in full force. Merck has been running ads during television shows like the very popularand, the latest chick flick to hit the theaters. That certainly can't be cheap, butpredicts that if the vaccine becomes routine, it would mean annual sales of 3.2 billion by 2010. But as the money starts pouring in, how many of the shareholders will give a thought to girls like Brittany, Jessica and Brooke?Joanne Waldron is a computer scientist with a passion for writing and sharing health-related news and information with others. She hosts the Naked Wellness: The Gentle Health Revolution forum, which is devoted to achieving radiant health, well-being, and longevity.