Lead researcher calls giving HPV vaccine to 11 year olds "great big public health experiment'

http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2007...cine/hpv01.txt

A lead researcher who spent 20 years developing the vaccine for
humanpapilloma virus says the HPV vaccine is not for younger girls,
and that it is "silly" for states to be mandating it for them.

Not only that, she says it's not been tested for effectiveness in
younger girls, and administering the vaccine to girls as young as 9
may not even protect them at all. And, in the worst-case scenario,
instead of serving to reduce the numbers of cervical cancers within 25
years, such a vaccination crusade actually could cause the numbers to
go up.

"Giving it to 11-year-olds is a great big public health experiment,"
said Diane M. Harper, who is a scientist, physician, professor and the
director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the
Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New
Hampshire.

"It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls There
also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that
safety is not an issue'.....

The article note that ......[Dr.] ...'Harper is an independent
researcher whose vaccine work is funded through Dartmouth in part by
both Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline, which means she is an employee
of the university, not the drug companies. Merck's vaccine, Gardasil,
protects against four strains of HPV, two of which cause genital
warts, Nos. 6 and 11. The other two, HPV 16 and 18, are cancer-causing
viruses. '.......

Dr. Harper is well positioned to comment on this subject as the
story note.......

"As the director of an international clinical trial for these
vaccines, and as author of lead articles about the vaccines'
effectiveness, Harper has been quoted widely as saying this vaccine
could have enormous potential to eradicate the great majority of
cervical cancers. '....

Some of Dr. Harpers other comment.... ""This vaccine should not be
mandated for 11-year-old girls," she reiterated. "It's not been tested
in little girls for efficacy. At 11, these girls don't get cervical
cancer - they won't know for 25 years if they will get cervical
cancer.'......and notes' .... ·

So far more than 40 cases of Guillian-Barre syndrome - a dangerous
immune disorder that causes tingling, numbness and even paralysis of
the muscles have been reported in girls who have received the HPV
vaccine in combination with the meningitis vaccine. Scientists already
know that sometimes a vaccine can trigger the syndrome in a subject.
"With the HPV vaccine, it is a small number but higher than is
expected, and we don't know if it's the combination of the two, or the
meningitis alone," Harper said. ........

Thanks Vince