Another View of the Vaccine
A View on Vaccine Safety from a Parent!
In this Controversial Issues section, we provide different views. From what we (NCCC) read and from the experts we talk with, we feel the vaccines are fantastic at reducing cervical cancer and HPV. In an effort to be balanced, we felt we should provide other viewpoints, so see below. Also visit the website: http://www.fda.gov/cber/safety/gardasil071408.htm
FYI: My daughter was a college student who recently came down with a case of Bell’s Palsy after getting her vaccine injection.
How are we doing on making sure there are no bad side effects from the vaccines? My daughter, Mishan, who was a student at Stanford, had her HPV/cervical cancer vaccine injection. About one month later she developed a case of Bells Palsy. Her face froze! WOW, we were scared! I understand that this can happen to anyone and not be related at all the the vaccine. Just a "Hmmm" sort of thing from a caring and concerned parents view. It is not easy being a parent...We care and desire to protect our children in so many ways.
At the NCCC we get folks wondering about side effects from time to time. From what we read and look to the Gov. web sites and in talking to experts in the field, as a grass-roots advocacy group, we think the vaccine will save thousands of lives and are very safe. The vaccine is FDA approved and they monitor side effect information as do the Pharmas. There is no live virus in the vaccines.
Alan Kaye
(A concerned parent)
SEE WEBSITE: http://www.fda.gov/cber/safety/gardasil071408.htm
see random comments below.
One less
A mother wonders whether the sudden death of her 19-year-old daughter could be related to the highly marketed Gardasil vaccine
BY TOM GRANT
AUGUSTA, GA - In early 2007, Brooke Petkevicius was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of California at Berkeley and Merck was heavily promoting Gardasil, the vaccine for HPV (human papillomavirus), on college campuses. Merck's "One Less" commercials push Gardasil as protection against cervical cancer.
On March 12, Brooke got the first dose. Fourteen days later, on March 26, she dressed to go running with friend Kristin Bietsch. They were training for a half-marathon.
They walked to the elevator, where Brooke suddenly collapsed against the wall and had a seizure. "She started shaking a lot. And her eyes went glazy a little bit," Bietsch recalls.
An ambulance rushed Brooke to the hospital. "She had a whole bunch of little floating clots in her system," Brooke's mother, Debra Sonner, said, relating what doctors told her at the time of her daughter's death, "which to me sounds like some kind of reaction."
They couldn't save her. According to the autopsy, Brooke was killed by a pulmonary embolism, or blood clot, that had blocked the artery between her heart and lungs.
By all accounts, Brooke had been healthy and happy. She didn't smoke or use drugs. The only unusual thing Sonner could find in her daughter's life was Gardasil.
Based on Sonner's suspicions, the death of Brooke Petkevicius was reported by health workers as one of what are now 4,500 reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) regarding Gardasil.
According to Dee Grothe of Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation in Washington promoting accountability in government, about 75 percent of the reports are for minor side effects that Merck expected - pain at the injection point, fainting and nausea, for instance.
But when Grothe read the VAERS reports - and read nearly 4,000 - she discovered that about 25 percent of the reported side effects involved more serious problems, including paralysis, convulsions and circulatory problems. VAERS now contains 11 death reports, including a woman who died of a blood clot three hours after getting the vaccine and a healthy 12-year-old who died in her sleep three weeks after the vaccine.
VAERS reports are voluntary and ****there's no proof***** that the drug actually causes the side effects. But these reports from health-care workers and individuals who feel the drug may have caused a side effect can provide a warning about drug safety.
However, Gardasil researchers at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire are firmly convinced ****there's no scientific basis to blame Gardasil for the serious adverse reactions and they believe the vaccine is quite safe.**********
******* The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) wrote in June, "Since more than 5 million doses have been distributed, some deaths will occur coincidentally following vaccination (but not due to vaccination)." ************
Based on the first death reports (including that of Brooke Petkevicius), the CDC seemed to point the finger not at Gardasil, but at birth-control pills. "Preliminary data indicate that the two women who died of blood clots were taking birth-control pills, and blood clots are a known risk associated with birth-control pills. All four deaths are being fully investigated but ******none appear to be caused by vaccination*******," according to the CDC on June 28, 2007.
Still, debate is growing. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has raised concerns about women being struck by Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a potentially fatal illness, after taking Gardasil. The NVIC and Judicial Watch question whether Gardasil was adequately tested for cross-reactions with other drugs and vaccines. One researcher fears Gardasil may not actually protect against cervical cancer if given to young girls who are still five years or more from the time they're most likely to be exposed to HPV - ages 17-23.
And Grothe is not convinced that the blood clots and circulatory problems being reported by some Gardasil users are random events unrelated to the vaccine. "Some are pretty hard to discount as being a reaction," Grothe said. "When a patient dies of a blood clot three hours after getting a Gardasil vaccination, that's pretty consistent to me."
"I am a 5-4, 120-pound, 17-year-old girl. I am healthy and have never had problems with shots, allergies or fainting. Yesterday (Jan. 3, 2008), I went to the doctor for a routine checkup and was advised by my doctor to receive several shots, including the first Gardasil vaccine.
"About 20 seconds after I received the shots, I felt nauseous and dizzy. I fainted and began to display seizure-like symptoms: My eyes rolled back in my head and I started shaking. After that, I was unconscious for 3-5 minutes. I had a severe headache the entire day and soreness where I received the HPV shot, which I thought was perfectly normal.
"The nurse also reassured me that fainting was normal, and that it was due to me having four shots given in a row; she said it had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccines. Before agreeing to the shots, I asked my doctor what the side effects would be. She told me that there were no serious side effects (just sorness and possibly mild fever) and that it was medically fine for me to have four shots given at once.
"I am sick over the idea that young girls are being recommended this potentially harmful shot, and that very few people seem to be doing anything about it."
- R.B., Madison, Wisc.
That's one of the many stories sent to the Metro Spirit after we began this follow-up story on the HPV vaccine. We first reported on the vaccine in January 2006. The Medical College of Georgia in Augusta was one of the sites where Gardasil was tested. At that time, Dr. Daron Ferris predicted that if women took the vaccine before being exposed to HPV, they could reduce their risk of cervical cancer by 75 percent.
Today, he still stands behind that assessment. He believes it's so safe and effective that he urges members of his own family to have their teenage daughters inoculated with Gardasil at the earliest opportunity.
As Farris discovered, Gardasil has been shown in clinical studies to be virtually 100 percent effective at preventing the infection of four strains of HPV, the sexually transmitted virus that causes genital warts. Two of those strains (types 16 and 18) are believed to be responsible for causing about 70 percent of cervical cancer.
"You have to have an HPV infection to get cervical cancer," said Dr. Diane Harper, a researcher in New Hampshire, "but not all HPV infections go into cervical cancer."
Gardasil has also been shown to be about 40 percent effective at stopping another type of HPV (type 31) that's the fourth most common strain linked to cervical cancer. And there is some evidence that it also offers some protection against vaginal and vulvar cancer.
Nearly everyone gets some form of HPV infection, but most fight off the infection with a natural immune response. However, in some women, the infection develops into an identifiable pre-cancerous condition of the cervix.
For decades, the primary defense against cervical cancer has been the Pap smear. Regular Pap tests allow physicians to identify the precursors to cervical cancer at its early stages, when it's nearly 100 percent treatable. Pap smears have helped reduce the rate of cervical cancer in the United States by 70 percent in the last half-century.
It can take up to 10 years for an HPV infection to turn into cervical cancer. In the United States, about 10,000 women will get cervical cancer every year and nearly 4,000 will die from it. (About 270,000 women die of some kind of cancer each year.)
********* The greatest risk for cervical cancer lies with those 11 percent of women who don't see their health-care provider for Pap Tests, or who can't afford treatment. That means that the poor and uninsured are at the greatest risk. **********
That's why most of the world's 250,000 deaths from cervical cancer worldwide are in developing countries, where regular health-care screenings are unavailable to most women. The majority of the gains against cervical cancer expected from Gardasil and future HPV vaccines will be in those developing areas of the world, where it will be more cost effective to treat women with vaccines than to set up ongoing health clinics to examine women on a regular basis.
Yet it's also one of the ironies about Gardasil. At $360 for a three-shot series (and often more than $500 when office visits are added in), the vaccine is getting its greatest push in North America, Europe and Australia, where the health-care gains are lower but the potential financial gains are greatest.
The financial gains have been significant. One December report from a leading Australian news outlet says 18 million doses have been sold worldwide. At TheStreet.com, a Wall Street analyst predicts that Merck will make $4 billion from Gardasil this year.
"In late May [2007] at about 9:30 a.m., I was given the first of the three Gardasil injections by the nurses provided by the Australian government. Instantly after the shot I was crying because the shot itself hurt so much, and I was a lot weaker then most of the other girls. I waited five minutes after I received the shot as the nurses suggested and then went back to class.
"An hour later at 10:30 a.m., I was nauseated, very dizzy and weak, so I was taken back down to the sick bay where the nurses were giving the shot. The school nurse took me into a room and told me to lie down and stay there.
"Ihe kookaburras were flying out of the picture at one point and attacking me, and I couldn't see most of the rainforest animals and the ones I could see were also coming at me.
"My friends had told the school nurse I was hallucinating and she then proceeded to get one of the government nurses who were administering the shot to come and have a look at me. The nurse looked straight at me and said, 'Do you have a headache or a rash on your chest?'
"I responded with a simple 'No' and she then walked out of the room saying, 'It isn't a reaction to the Gardasil unless its one of those two symptoms. She is probably just reacting to being given a needle.' I immediately felt like they all thought I was lying now and that I was making it up.
"A few hours had passed by now because my friends had come in at lunch time to check how I was doing. At this point my entire right side had become paralyzed, my hand was clenched into a fist that I couldn't open, I couldn't lift my right leg off the bed and the right side of my face was weak.
"My mum didn't believe that the nurses were glaring at me and that I had gone through such a serious reaction without anyone doing anything so she came down to the school. She immediately took me to see my family doctor. It was now almost 3:30 in the afternoon and not a single person had admitted it was a reaction to the HPV vaccine. She called a few people to try and find out if it might be a reaction, but kept being told that this wasn't a recorded reaction so it must be something else. I was sent home with orders to rest and see if it goes away. Luckily it did.
"I wasn't upset that I had had a reaction to the vaccine; I was upset that no one would acknowledge it. I still went on to receive the other two injections for the HPV vaccine and each time my reaction was less serious. The second shot only resulted in prolonged weakness and dizziness, and the third shot caused mild weakness and only very slight dizziness. I do stand on the side that the vaccine is a wonderful opportunity for all those who can get it. I don't know why anyone would pass up the chance, and I strongly urge all girls who have had reactions like mine to get the other two shots because would they rather these side effect to a needle or risk the side effect of cervical cancer which is death? I can honestly say I would much rather the side effects of the HPV vaccine."
- Allie Harvey, Adelaide, Australia
Gardasil was fast-tracked for FDA approval because it was the first drug of its kind, a vaccine that could prevent cancer. The vaccine uses the protein shell of HPV to stimulate an immune response.
Merck's vaccine was approved in 2006. A second vaccine for HPV has been developed by GlaxoSmithKline, but FDA approval is not expected until late 2008.
Merck used its window of opportunity to urge states to make Gardasil a mandatory vaccine for schoolgirls. Seventeen states have enacted laws to require, fund or educate the public about the HPV vaccine.
The promotional effort has been worldwide. In Australia, the government made it free to women under the age of 26 and began giving vaccinations in schools.
Oddly, Australia had one of the lowest rates of cervical cancer before this massive inoculation plan began. In that country of 20 million people, only 227 women died of cervical cancer in 2002. Now, about 17 adverse reactions to the vaccine are reported every week.
According to the Australian television news magazine "Today Tonight," the reactions include seizures and paralysis. The maker of the vaccine in Australia says the side effects are mostly minor, such as fainting, and consistent with other vaccines.
NVIC, a consumer organization that advocates on issues of vaccine safety, has analyzed the adverse event reports in the United States. NVIC found that 14 percent involved some kind of fainting or seizure event with or without neurological symptoms. Another 8 percent involved tingling, numbness and loss of sensation, facial paralysis or Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
Guillain-Barre is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system and can cause a life-threatening paralysis. Scientists do not know what sets the disease in motion. The VAERS reports now list 25 cases with symptoms of Guillain-Barre. (There may be more cases. At least one documented case involving a 12-year-old in Florida who was vaccinated then two weeks later collapsed and lost feeling in her legs is not among the VAERS reports.)
NVIC has raised concerns that even the relatively minor side effect of fainting could be dangerous. Some girls have collapsed and struck their heads, causing serious injury. And some have reported fainting many hours after getting the vaccine, raising concerns about girls driving after getting the shot.
Because of the fainting problem, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends a 15-minute waiting period before patients who have been immunized for HPV are released. NVIC says the shots should be given when the patient is lying down.
"I am 18 years old. I received my first shot of the three-dosage series in September.
"Shortly after the shot I felt this overwhelming aching heat in my kneecaps and ankles. After 24 hours, it spread to the majority of my bones. About one month after the shot (about the time for my next dosage) my body practically went through withdrawals from missing the vaccination. I once again had aching bones, only this time there were also cold sweats involved.
"It has been months since my first dosage, and I will not go back. Since the shot my eyesight has been more blurred, I have my first varicose veins all over my thighs and ankles (keep in mind that I just turned 18!) and my bones hurt from even the softest pressure."
- Breann Kennedy, Sterling, Alaska
Brooke Petkevicius' favorite book was "The God of Small Things." She gathered an inspirational quote from author, Arundhati Roy: "There is only one dream worth having. to live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead."
Her mother, Debra Sonner, asked herself: Why did that death come so soon? The loss of child is the darkest of times. To Sonner, Brooke's death was the most inexplicable of events.
Sonner was a single mother of two who divorced Brooke's father when the girl was in second grade. Brooke's sister is one year younger.
Brooke was an achiever. She placed fifth in a national speaking contest of Future Farmers of America as a sophomore in high school. She played lacrosse. She was a straight-A student.
She'd continued her personal achievements even through turmoil in her personal life - moving away from her mom to live with her dad as a 15-year-old, falling out with the father during his divorce from her stepmother, and eventually moving in with an aunt and uncle in Portland, Ore.
Brooke earned six merit scholarships to pay for her Berkeley education. And she seemed incredibly happy at her new school. She wrote in an essay about the difficulty she had breaking up with boy in Portland when she first came to Berkeley.
"Unconsciously, I thought of my relationships as taking place back home, when, really, I should have left that relationship, like the rest of my life, back home," she wrote. "While my clothes had moved here, my academic life had moved, my body had moved here, my social life eventually moved here, too, and I am now fully a California Golden Bear."
Brooke's friend at school, Megan Sadowski, said, "Brooke did not smoke. She was possibly one of the healthiest people I've ever met. She never did drugs and rarely drank alcohol. She worked out daily, and took a lot of classes at the gym. She never complained about anything, really. Certainly not her health. She was an amazing, upbeat, caring, healthy young woman and her death was a complete shock."
The autopsy report is remarkable for how "unremarkable" Brooke's condition appeared. "The heart (280 gm) is grossly unremarkable," it reads. "There is no significant artery atherosclerosis. The relationship of the cardiac chambers and atrioventricular connections are unremarkable."
The final diagnosis: "Pulmonary embolism," a clot blocking the left artery between the heart and lungs. But the big question is why a healthy 19-year-old girl would suddenly throw a huge clot.
Sonner said her daughter had been on birth-control pills called Yasmin for about 10 months. However, Brooke had none of the other risk factors associated with blood clots. Drug tests came back negative. Brooke had no allergies, no tobacco use and no past substance-abuse problems.
"She was absolutely clean," said Sonner.
She's never had problems with a clot in her leg or anyplace else in her body. When she had surgery as a child, the doctors had no concerns about abnormal clotting.
Her family had no history of clotting problems. Subsequent tests of her younger sister and her mother showed nothing genetic.
Ferris read the autopsy and said the risk factors associated with pulmonary embolism are smoking, birth control and genetic predisposition. Sudden death from pulmonary embolism can happen like a lightning strike.
"These emboli, that's the way they occur," Ferris said. "They occur out of the blue. Nobody expects them. There's no evidence to date that the vaccines are connected with that type of adverse event."
Dr. Diane Harper also read the autopsy and said she didn't think it had anything to do with the HPV vaccine.
"HPV vaccine is not going to cause hyper clotting," Harper said. "If it had, we would have seen clotting in other places, like away from heart."
However, oral birth-control pills are known to increase the risk of blood clots. In 2003, the British Medical Journal reported on five Dutch cases in which women taking Yasmin had problems with blood clots, including a 17-year-old woman who died of a pulmonary embolism.
Further research showed about 20-40 cases of clots within blood vessels per 100,000 women using birth-control pills like Yasmin. That's about four times higher than for women who don't use birth-control pills.
Sonner worries that there may be a drug interaction between Gardasil and birth-control pills. Ferris and Harper say they haven't seen anything to suggest that it in the studies, even though thousands of the women were on birth-control pills.
But at Judicial Watch, Grothe shares Sonner's fears. "I saw enough cardio-related reactions," she said. "So it is a little bit concerning, especially if used with birth control, which also has whole range of side effects."
"In August, 2007, my 21-year-old daughter had her third HPV vaccine. Approximately three hours after the vaccine, she had a seizure. I was with her when this happened. She was transported by ambulance to the local ER and was worked up.
"Later she was followed up by a neurologist and had CT scan, MRI, blood work, EEG and X-rays. Luckily, all were negative. But none of the physicians would say it was from the vaccine. My daughter is perfectly healthy, no medical problems, so I know it was from the vaccine.
"I have read through the VAERS database on the HPV vaccine. It is shocking how many side effects, including death, that are reported."
- Joanne Venice, Atlantic City, N.J.
K. Krasnow Waterman keeps a blog that has become a gathering point for many people with concerns about Gardasil. A lawyer, consultant, former law professor and former fellow at MIT, Waterman maintains a Web site at kkrasnowwaterman.com.
About 60 people have described their experiences with Gardasil and Waterman has compiled their reports into a spreadsheet. The purpose is to create a publicly available site where people can post details and, as the blog says, "Help solve the mystery of HPV vaccine side effects!"
Waterman asked people to specify their age and weight, to say whether they had other vaccinations with the Gardasil, to say how long it took for the reaction to occur and to describe the reaction. The idea is to see whether certain reactions happen under specific conditions.
One thing that's striking from reading Waterman's data is how many people report seizures or convulsions - roughly one-third. Often, the reaction is immediate.
"My 14-year-old daughter had [her] first Gardasil shot with the meningitis shot. She immediately fainted and had a seizure. She is very healthy, athletic and had never had any reactions to any of her shots," Kristie posted on Oct. 18.
Others complain about reactions days or weeks later.
"Less than a month after receiving the Gardasil vaccine I blacked out and had a seizure (or what looked like one)," wrote 24-year-old Julia. She said her doctors can't figure out what's wrong. "I'm still blacking out, dizzy all the time and having minor convulsions. I got the shot six months ago."
In most cases, women are being told that it's not a reaction to the vaccine but rather a reaction to having the shot, which can be more painful than others.
In Biloxi, Miss., Anita Yarborough took her 12-year-old daughter Olivia to the doctor for a routine visit. The physician's office recommended the Gardasil vaccine, which is being recommended to girls before they become sexually active.
A few minutes after the vaccination, Yarborough watched her daughter walk about 50 steps then go into what she believes was a seizure. Olivia's eyes rolled back in her head, she stiffened up and had clonic jerks. Yarborough is familiar with seizures because her husband has survived brain cancer and she's seen them before.
Olivia was placed on a stretcher and rushed to the emergency room. But doctors told her mother later that it was merely a case of vaso-vagal syncope caused because Olivia was scared from the shot.
"It was very scary," Yarborough said, "and I'm not settled about the 'why' they gave me."
Vaso-vagal syncope is described as a paradoxical reflex that causes a fall in blood pressure and a loss of consciousness.
"We think it's needle phobia," said Dr. Harper. During the trials, they discovered that many of the young women they were dealing with hadn't eaten very much during the day and had lots of hormones running in their blood. When they get the shot, they get woozy. "I don't think it's the vaccine that's causing them to faint."
But NVIC says there may be reporting confusion between syncope (fainting) and actual seizures. About 30 percent of the VAERS reports involve syncope and 6 percent involve convulsions.
Yet there are some VAERS reports which supposedly describe syncope but actually talk of seizure activity such as tonic or clonic posturing. "Tonic/clonic seizures are also known as 'grand mal' seizures," NVIC writes on its Web site. NVIC believes one-quarter of the adverse reports were for "neurological adverse events."
Even Brooke Petkevicius's death began not with shortness of breath, as you might expect with a pulmonary embolism, but with a seizure. (One doctor, who did not want to be quoted, raised the question of whether seizures could lead to an embolism.) NVIC is calling for further investigation of Gardasil's neurological effects
NVIC also advises against taking Gardasil in combination with other vaccines, particularly Menactra, because it found a significant increase in adverse events when women get multiple vaccinations including Gardasil. NVIC found that reports of Guillain-Barre were 10 times higher when Menactra and Gardasil were given together.
"Both of my daughters received the Gardasil shot on Nov. 6, 2007. Three weeks after the shot my oldest daughter (16 years old), woke up to not being able to walk or feel her legs.
"We took her to the hospital and [she] was then admitted with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and for four days was paralyzed from the top of her knees down. It has been a month and a half, and now my youngest daughter age 13 is experiencing the same symptoms. They are both very tired all the time, [with] passing out episodes [and] not feeling well. Both girls are having these symptoms.
They have done two MRIs and many blood tests and now [health workers] want to say it is stress and put my daughter on Prozac. This was bothering me a lot until I [began] researching this shot. Now at least I know what it is.
The question now is how long are these things that are happening to my girls going to last so, please, anybody out there thinking about getting this shot, I would think twice about it."
- Terri, Utah
The Gardasil advertisement pushes a theme. "I want to be one less. One less. I want to be one less woman who will battle cervical cancer," the young woman riding her horse says. "Because now there's Gardasil. The only vaccine that may help protect you from the four types of human papillomavirus that may cause cervical cancer."
The ad goes on to say it doesn't prevent all cervical cancer. It doesn't protect everyone. And women still need routine health screening for cervical cancer.
Despite the warnings and repeated use of the word "may," the clear implication of the television ad is that if mothers give their daughters Gardasil, their daughters won't have to battle cervical cancer. A woman's chance of getting cervical cancer in her lifetime is about 1 in 142, according to the National Cancer Institute. (In contrast, the lifetime chance of breast cancer is about 1 in 8.)
Dr. Harper believes that the rate of cervical cancer could actually see an increase if Gardasil continues to push the vaccine to girls as young as 9.
"I would not vaccinate a 12-year-old with Gardasil. I'm not convinced Gardasil is going to last through the college years," she said.
Harper points to data indicating that the antibody levels in women vaccinated with Gardasil decline after a few years. She believes further research is needed to determine if a booster shot would be needed five or 10 years after the first vaccination.
She's concerned that if a child gets a vaccine at 12 but, as is normal, becomes most sexually active between the ages of 17 and 23. She may not have the protection she thinks she has when she needs it most.
Harper also worries that girls who are vaccinated may believe they don't need regular Pap smears.
"If they're vaccinated and have the assumption that they're protected from cervical cancer for life, and choose not to get a Pap smear because they believe they are protected, the rate of cervical cancer will actually increase," Harper said.
She recommends waiting to inoculate girls with Gardasil until they are 15 or 16, and she favors the new GlaxoSmithKline vaccine because research suggests to her that it will last longer.
At the Medical College of Georgia, Dr. Ferris disagrees with Harper. He says that studies so far indicate that once someone has been vaccinated, that woman's immune system will quickly respond to knock out new infections, even many years after the initial vaccination.
Studies going on in Scandinavia and other parts of the world could help to resolve this debate within a few years. But the heavy promotion of Gardasil continues. And women are being asked to make informed decisions today - not in a few years.
One researcher, Ferris at MCG, comes down clearly on the side of giving Gardasil to girls 12 and up, inoculating them before they become sexually active. And while he still advises women to get regular Pap smears and tests for HPV, he thinks Gardasil will last a lifetime. Harper believes Gardasil is a great vaccine for women in 15 or older. "This is not a virgin vaccine," she says.
She might choose to wait for the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine if she had a 12-year-old, but for women who are entering the most sexually active years of their lives, she believes Gardasil can be a lifesaver. She sees few risks that can't be avoided by simply giving the vaccine to women when they're lying down and watching them carefully for 15 minutes afterward.
But there is another response. "I'm not sure if her death was related to Gardasil or not, but my friend and I were in the process of taking it (she had two of the three shots, I had one), but we both stopped, just in case," said Megan Sadowski after the death of her friend Brooke Petkevicius.
In the opinions of Harper and Ferris, that would be an irrational response, for to the physicians the death of Petkevicius was a random event. Any time millions of young women are given a drug, a few will experience negative outcomes completely unrelated to the drug itself.
Harper likens it to looking at things from 30,000 feet. "The rate is no greater than in the general population," she says, whether we're talking about Guillain-Barre or pulmonary embolism. "The woman has a health condition, but it's probably not related to receiving the vaccine."
But to Debra Sonner, who lost her daughter, the vaccine and the loss will be linked forever. And those "One Less" ads have a tearfully different meaning.
