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Death by Gardasil? Not so fast… (2018 edition)

There is a type of “vaccine injury” story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call “death by Gardasil.” The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can’t help but feel incredible empathy for the parents. However, none of these stories constitute compelling evidence that Gardasil kills young people. Basically, antivaxers exploit the grief of these parents and their understandable desire to find a cause for their child’s demise to demonize HPV vaccinations as dangerous and deadly.

I’ve been writing about antivaccine pseudoscience for a long time now, both here and elsewhere. Indeed, I was thinking about this the other day and realized that I made my first big splash countering antivaccine misinformation around 13 years ago, and that I had spent about five years before that sparring with antivaxers on Usenet. In that time, I’ve seen all manner of pseudoscience, misinformation, and outright lies about vaccines, including claims that vaccines cause autism and neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune disease, diabetes, sudden infant death syndrome, and more. I’ve even seen claims that “shaken baby syndrome” (now known as abusive head trauma) is actually a misdiagnosis for vaccine injury, with antivaxers going so far as to defend child killers by claiming that it was vaccines that killed the baby, not the child abuser. As a result, there is little that antivaxers say that surprises me much anymore.

Unfortunately, included in this lack of surprise is a common claim made about vaccines against the human papillomavirus (HPV), in particular against Gardasil, which are designed to prevent cervical cancer by preventing the most common types of HPV that cause cervical cancer. (Why I don’t see nearly as much fear mongering about the other major HPV vaccine, Cervarix, I don’t know.) For some reason, the antivaccine movement harbors an unusually high degree of hostility for and fear of Gardasil, even though it is intended to prevent a potentially deadly cancer. It’s crazy even by antivaxer standards.

Strike that. The reason is not that mysterious. HPV, several types of which cause cervical cancer, is primarily a sexually transmitted disease. In order to maximize protection, HPV vaccination is recommended for preteen girls—and, more recently, boys—to ensure that they are protected before they become sexually active, although many who receive it are teens. Basically, yes, it’s primarily about sex, which is why one of the most persistent bits of antivaccine fear mongering about Gardasil is that it causes https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2012/10/30/ovarian-failure-caused-by-gardasil-not-so-fast/ and infertility. It doesn’t.

One of the more extreme claims about Gardasil and Cervarix that makes the rounds from time to time is that the vaccine is killing prepubscent girls. I’ve discussed a number of these cases over the years, both here and elsewhere. Suffice to say, when these cases are critically evaluated, the evidence for a link between Gardasil and the deaths attributed to the vaccine is almost always incredibly thin and unconvincing. One example is Annabelle Morin, whose mother Linda Morin blames Gardasil for her daughter’s death, even though it almost certainly did not. Another example is Jasmine Renata, whose death at a young age was cynically exploited by antivaxers. It even attracted our old antivaccine “friend,” scientist Christopher Shaw, to the proceedings, where he tried to convince New Zealand health authorities that HPV vaccination can cause sudden death and that it caused Renata’s death. The most recent case I discussed was that of Colton Berrett, an active, happy 13 year old boy who received the old three shot series of Gardasil and, two weeks after his third dose, developed symptoms of transverse myelitis, an autoimmune disease that affects the spinal cord. It left him dependent on a ventilator, with one arm completely paralyzed and the other greatly weakened. Four years later, he committed suicide. His case has since been used to promote the idea that “Gardasil kills.”

The cases exploited by antivaxers are tragic, and the stories told heart-breaking. No person with an ounce of compassion can read any of them without feeling his heart break for the pain the child who became ill and died suffered and the grief of her family. One can even understand how the parents might come to blame Gardasil, even on the most tenuous of correlation. Discussing such stories requires care and tact, because inevitably any skeptical look at the narrative being promoted by the antivaccine movement will be portrayed as an attack on the dead child and his grieving family.

Unfortunately, they’ve been at it again; so once more I feel obligated to look into some of stories being exploited to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines. All are horrible cases. None, however, are evidence that Gardasil kills, no matter how much antivaxers try to spin them otherwise.

Jasmin Soriat: Death by Gardasil?

Last fall, the UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters (AHVID) and SaneVax released a multipart YouTube documentary entitled Sacrificial Virgins. I discussed it once before, but at the time I didn’t really know the details or who the young woman was whose death was blamed on Gardasil. Now I do. Here’s part I:

Before I discuss the death in the film attributed to Gardasil, I can’t resist commenting on the title of the propaganda video: Sacrificial Virgins. Of course, the imagery in the title is not about a loss of innocence, but a sacrifice of innocence, an image that resonates deeply in human myth, history, religion, and literature. The next question becomes: Sacrifice to what? In general, the implication of human sacrifice, particularly virgin sacrifice, is of ancient, pagan religion, and that’s clearly the imagery the video makers went for here. The implication is that vaccination for HPV is based not on science, but rather on some form of irrational, religious belief system that demands a virgin sacrifice. No one ever accused antivaxers of being subtle.

In the film, Christian Fiala, who, not surprisingly, is an HIV/AIDS denialist and a Board member of the HIV/AIDS denialist group Rethinking AIDS, claims to have identified a 19-year-old woman whose death was caused by HPV vaccination, one of the “virgin sacrifices.” Co-producer of the film, Joan Shenton, also an HIV/AIDS denialist and someone who apparently discovered antivaccine pseudoscience later in life, interviews the pathologist who did the autopsy on the young woman, Prof. Dr. Johan Missliwetz. In the interview, he pointed out that his first autopsy left him unable to find a cause of death, leading him to suspect a genetic heart defect, which is, of course, one of the most common causes of unexplained deaths in young adults. Previous interviews by him don’t really show him saying vaccinations caused the woman’s death. However, in this interview, he claims that his other thought about the cause of death, besides the genetic heart defect, was HPV vaccination, even though it was three weeks after the woman’s second dose of HPV vaccine.

When I first encountered that YouTube video, I could not find out who this unfortunate young woman was. Subsequently, I’ve learned that her name was Jasmin Soriat. Her death was described in—surprise! surprise!—The Daily Mail:

A teenage girl died in her sleep weeks after being given the controversial human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, a new documentary has claimed.

Jasmin Soriat, 19, a student from Vienna, suffered neurological symptoms after having a second dose of the injection and suffered respiratory failure three weeks later.

A pathologist who examined her body has said the vaccine could have been the cause of her death.

Jasmin’s story is one of ‘hundreds of documented deaths following the HPV vaccine’ according to claims in a new three-part documentary, titled Sacrificial Virgins.

And:

Government forensic pathologist Dr Johan Missliwetz was ordered by a court to do a second autopsy on Miss Soriat as the first could not establish the cause of death.

He concluded that the vaccine could have been the cause of her demise.
The doctor, who has now taken early retirement, said: ‘I couldn’t find a reasonable cause of death but had two suspicions. One is a genetic disorder of the heart and the other one, it had to do with vaccination.’

If you examine stories like that of Jasmine Soriat, you’ll find that there are many commonalities. First and foremost, the temporal association between HPV vaccination and death is tenuous at best. In this case, Soriat had the first shot in the series and didn’t have any problems until weeks after her second shot. (The story I will conclude this post with demonstrates an even less convincing association.) If you want to see how tenuous the association between Gardasil and Jasmine Soriat’s death is, take a look at a more contemporaneous account of her death in 2007:

Less that one month after her last Gardasil injection, Jasmin’s friend discovered her body. She had evidently died in her sleep, succumbing to respiratory paralysis.

Jasmin was fit, happy and fun-loving. She had never experienced any serious illnesses, had no lung disease, and had never smoked. She also had no previous problems after any of her normal vaccinations.

Searching for answers, her parents meticulously reconstructed her final hours of life. According to their investigations, “She was at a concert, a Spanish band. Before midnight, she was at a fast food restaurant. She then drove with her flatmate home, via taxi to Dobling. At approximately two o’clock in the morning, she drank som [sic] tea.”

The next morning, her girlfriend came by to check up on her, but Jasmin, according to her friend, “must have died a few hours earlier in her sleep.”

As I’ve discussed before, there was no evidence linking Gardasil to Ms. Soriat’s death, other than a very tenuous temporal link. Far more likely is a genetic disorder of the conduction system of the heart, which can manifest itself as sudden cardiac death and show no anatomic abnormality on autopsy.

Common themes in “death by Gardasil” stories

After you’ve examined a few of them, you’ll rapidly find two main themes among the stories of “death by Gardasil” circulated in the antivaccine underground that make them unconvincing evidence for vaccine injury. First, the temporal link between Gardasil and death is almost always extremely tenuous, often with the patient having received at least one or two shots in the series with no ill effects and the ill effects only arising weeks or months after the shot on which parents place the blame for their child’s illness.

As a typical example, let’s take a look at the case of Christina Tarsell:

Between her junior and senior years, Chris had a summer job working at the college art museum while living with classmates in a house in Tivoli, NY. So after a short visit home to Maryland, Chris returned to Bard and her job on June 13, 2008. During the visit home, on June 3rd, Chris had gotten her third shot of Gardasil.

A few days later, Chris complained of feeling dizzy, tired and she developed a rash on her neck. She had a post-vaccine cough and sinus congestion that wouldn’t go away. We were never told of any side effects to Gardasil so we did not know these signs were significant. Chris was found dead in her bed 18 days after her third shot. What could have happened? Chris was always a healthy, wholesome girl, a non-smoker, an athlete. She didn’t take drugs or medication.

As of this writing, the cause is “undetermined”. Further investigation suggests that Chris, like other girls who died following Gardasil, may have had an autoimmune related response triggered by the vaccine. The CDC wants you to dismiss them as “coincidences,” while our beautiful, innocent daughters die needlessly.

This story has both of the elements that I discuss. The temporal relationship between vaccination and death is questionable, and she had had two shots before the third shot blamed for her death. She developed an unknown illness and died suddenly. Her parents did further “investigation” and concluded that it must have been the Gardasil.

Some stories don’t even tell the interval between vaccination and death. For instance, there’s the case of Megan Hild, who died at age 20 after a mysterious illness. The most detailed account I could find (which was not very detailed at all) only said that when “she started having severe bouts of fatigue, after her first two Gardasil shots, we thought it was due to her schedule” and that “she began to have a multitude of health problems, including terrible headaches and severe stomach pains.” Ultimately, she was found dead.

The same is true for stories being promoted by the antivaccine movement in which the teen doesn’t die but does become seriously ill. For example, another prominent story featured in Sacrificial Virgins is that of Chloe Brookes-Holder, who is currently 18 and has suffered from a variety of debilitating diseases for several years. Her story was featured in the British tabloid press last year:

Chloe says she was a normal 12-year-old who danced six days a week and dreamed of a career on stage when she had the jab at school.

But in the months that followed the healthy teenager fell ill with dizziness, headaches, fatigue and bone and joint pain, and her muscles weakened.

She has since lost three stone – dropping from 8st 2oz to just 5st – has lost all feeling in her legs and is fed through a tube.

Photos show the teenager’s emaciated body, hooked up to wires and drips, as she lies in hospital, where she has spent most of the last 12 months.

Devastatingly, the pretty teenager has been told she may never walk again – let alone waltz about a dance floor – because she still has no feeling in her lower body.

Her mum Sophie Brookes, 41, has even been forced to give up work as a hairdresser and is now her full-time carer.

As is often the case, I had to do a fair amount of reading before I found what I was looking for: The time interval between vaccination with, in this case, Cervarix and the onset of symptoms. It was in the news story near the bottom, but it’s nowhere to be found in a number of other articles on antivaccine websites about her:

Between the second and third jabs, she fell ill with a string of viruses, started experiencing debilitating muscle pain and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

A gastrointestinal disorder left her in agony every time she ate, she lost control of her bladder and was later diagnosed with POTS, which causes abnormal heart rate.

A year after having the injection, Chloe says also began experiencing paralytic episodes and collapsing at school, unable to control her lower body.

So there it is again: A mysterious set of illnesses that showed up between the second and third shot and slowly worsened, with no indication of how soon after the second shot it occurred. Again, as is the case with the “death by Gardasil stories,” the temporal link is unclear and very tenuous at best. Yet the family is convinced that it had to be the vaccine that caused Chloe’s problems. Of course, one wonders when they became convinced that it had to have been the vaccine, given that the first symptoms appeared sometime between the second and third shot of Cervarix and they still went ahead and gave her the third shot.

Antivaxers exploit the deaths of children and teens to promote their dangerous message

I’m in no way downplaying the tragedy the families of these girls and young women have endured or the grief and anguish they have experienced over the deaths of their daughters and, in other cases, the serious illnesses their daughters have suffered. After all, no parent expects to outlive her daughter, and sudden, unexplained deaths of people under 21 are an anomaly. We humans are also pattern-forming creatures; it’s hard-wired into our brains that, when something happens, particularly something that provokes such a strong emotional response in us like the death of a child, there must be a reason. If there is no good explanation available, the very human response to tragedy is to look desperately for one and to latch onto it when we think we’ve found one. For instance, Ms. Hild’s mother summed up exactly the sort of thinking that leads parents suffering the death of a child to come to erroneous conclusions about what caused that death:

On her death certificate it will read, Cause of death unknown. She’s my daughter and I loved her!!!! I will never see her graduate college. I will never see her wear a wedding dress and hold her babies in her arms.

The one thing in common among all the girls and women whom I’ve just discussed that I have featured is that the actual cause of death is unknown. How can that be? How can these healthy, active young women for no apparent reason just die? That does not make any logical sense to me. There has to be a reason because things like this just do not happen, period.

Unfortunately, things like this most definitely can and do happen. We humans are simply unable to accept that, which leads to parents in mourning blaming vaccines for the deaths of their children.

These stories of young people who died are tragic, particularly that of Colton Berrett are incredibly sad and tragic, and, remember, I have blogged about several of the children with incurable cancer treated by cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski. A highly active and happy child, he was unfortunate enough to develop a horrific disease that robbed him of much of his ability to do what he loved the most and rendered him completely dependent upon others for many of his basic activities. He faced a lifetime ahead of him in which he was unlikely ever to get significantly better or recover much more function than he had already recovered. What makes the tragedy so much worse is how the antivacine vultures responsible for VAXXED have swarmed around the family since discovering his case, encouraging his mother to buy into the false notion that Gardasil injured her son to the point where he was so damaged that he took his own life and blaming Gardasil for his suffering and death. Their behavior, their exploitation of Colton and his family, is beyond despicable.

There’s even one case I know of, that of a 12-year-old girl named Meredith Prohaska, who died after receiving Gardasil. It turned out that the coroner had ruled that Gardasil had not resulted in her death. Why? Because she found what did: an overdose of the antihistamine diphenhydramine (Benadryl). Unsurprisingly, the publications promoting her story never corrected their articles, and Meredith’s story is still featured as a “death by Gardasil” story on the anti-Gardasil website My Gardasil Story and was described without mention of the true cause of death on the quack website Natural Mentor. So, basically, if the cause of death is not determined, to antivaxers it must have been the HPV vaccine. If it is, as in Meredith Prohaska’s case, determined not to have been related to HPV vaccination, then antivaxers never correct their previous stories. Either that, or the coroner’s findings are dismissed as part of the conspiracy to cover up the dangers of Gardasil.

There is abundant evidence that HPV vaccines are safe and effective, despite the myths about them promoted by the antivaccine movement. Unfortunately, a combination of that very human need to have an explanation for the death of a child and opportunistic exploitation of that need by leaders of the antivaccine movement lead to cases like that of Colton Berrett, Annabelle Morin, Jasmine Soriat, and Christina Tarsell being promoted as “evidence” that Gardasil kills even though they are nothing of the sort. Sadly, the empathy that we all feel for parents who have lost children tends to lead people to take the version of the story presented by the parents and antivaccine movement at face value and accept their conclusion that Gardasil killed their children.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

53 replies on “Death by Gardasil? Not so fast… (2018 edition)”

“Less that one month after her last Gardasil injection, Jasmin’s friend discovered her body. She had evidently died in her sleep, succumbing to respiratory paralysis.”

Respiratory paralysis? Was there an autopsy correlate, or does it just mean she stopped breathing (which accompanies death in a rather high percentage of cases)?

Speaking of autopsies, did Dr Johan Missliwetz do a conduction system dissection on Ms. Soriat’s heart to look for a lesion?

I’ve read a lot of autopsy reports in cases of suspected arrhythmias I’ve never seem them do a dissection for a conduction lesion. Usually it’s not necessary; a finding of heart failure is usually enough in the absence of other evidence to support the conclusion.

Thing is, to conclude it’s the vaccine, you have to show how that could have possibly happened. Otherwise it’s just speculation.

“Why I don’t see nearly as much fear mongering about the other major HPV vaccine, Cervarix, I don’t know”

I think we can agree that both vaccines have an acceptable safety profile; so the answer to your question is likely linked to vaccine use and AE reporting.

The most likely reason for the skewed fear mongering is that Gardasil dominates the global market (likely >80%, see crude calculation below), and reporting of post-licensure AEs is biased to the most widely distributed brand. The reason for the skew also explains why Cervarix isn’t distributed in the US anymore: difficult for a bivalent vaccine to effectively compete given that it offers less protection than the quad or nonavalent Gardasil, has no indication/benefit for males, and is similarly priced.

Crude calculation
WHO estimated 270 million doses of HPV vaccines distributed by 2015:
http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/hpv/June_2017/en/

GSK reported 41 million doses distributed in 2013 (and since licensure in 2007 that is approximately 7 million doses/year):
https://us.gsk.com/en-us/media/press-releases/2013/gsk-cervarix-two-dose-schedule-receives-european-marketing-authorisation/

So even if Cervarix didn’t continue to lose business between 2013 and 2015 it would likely only have ~20% share at best, and not all of that would be in countries that have safety reporting mechanisms comparable to US and EU (which may reduce AE reporting).

I think it might be even simpler than that. Gardasil has more visibility than Cervarix. I’d never even heard of the later until now. Can’t be scared of seomthing if you don’t know it exists, right?

Presumably you are in the United States where GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) stopped in October 2016 marketing the human papillomavirus (HPV) bivalent vaccine, Cervarix. Believe that is still true, but is available most everywhere else in the world.

Perhaps people are embarrassed to say the word cervarix. It sounds like cervix said by a pirate and leads to impure thoughts.

I think you will find that “Cervarix” is the term for a guy specialising in deer, from “cervus”. The female form is “cervarice”.

The Vaccine Court’s “Findings of Fact” are published:
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/MORAN.TARSELL033012.pdf

What it has that the quotes above do not have is this:

On November 20, 2007, Christina saw a doctor for chronic sinus congestion. The doctor detected an irregular pulse rate. Exhibit 4 at 136. An EKG was abnormal, indicating premature atrial contractions and that Christina ’s heart was beating in pairs. Id. at 142

Approximately one month later, the EKG was repeated. It appears unchanged from the previous one. Id . at 135 and 141. In February 2008, Christina had a transthoracic echocardiogram. It produced normal results. Exhibit 4 at 139.

As a parent of a young man who has had open heart surgery I am a bit biased. I think more attention should have been given to her heart health. Even if the echo showed no abnormal anatomy, there still should have been some followup. (our family is very familiar with echocardiograms, my son had obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy… the obstruction has been removed but he is still on medication because the abnormal electrical stuff is still there). One thing I did not see mentioned is her having to wear a 24-48 hour or longer Holter monitor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holter_monitor

When Ms. Tarsell complained of being dizzy the first thought should have been about her heart, not a vaccine. Every cardiology appointment my son has, even after surgery, the first question is if he has experienced any dizziness.

I wonder if they simply left some of the information out of the story? It wouldn’t be the first time. Some years ago when my regular doctor was away, the stand in made me do a 48-hour Holter monitor and other tests because of dizziness and a racing heart. Nothing found – the regular doctor got back and told her it’s bad sinus problems and a bit of a reaction to the medication.

A legal “finding of facts” is supposed to get all those details. And for something like this all medical records would be requested.

The hazards of skimming the article while at work. I missed that the medical information was from court. In that case, I’d be checking to see if there was malpractice.

The words these anti-vaxxers use to describe these young women “wholesome” “innocent” really bother me. There’s this whole virginal purity thing is incredibly creepy and weird. Would the anti-vaxxers not care if the women had been surly teenagers who sassed their parents, rather than pure prefect angels?
It is really, really gross.

Right. Notice the title: Sacrificial Virgins
Similarly they note that the departed was good looking or beautiful as though it would be less a tragedy if she were average.

There’s this whole virginal purity thing is incredibly creepy and weird.

Jasmin was 19 years old, so yes, weird. Maybe they should start demanding an examination of the hymen during these autopsies.

Like vaccines in general, Gardasil is not so much “suspicious” as “available” for grieving parents seeking someone-or-something to blame… and despicable shysters seeking to milk a tragedy for economic gain.

Cervarix vs. Gardasil …

As others have pointed out, one reason for the prominence of Gardasil is of course market share.
Gardasil is contaminated with yeast proteins.
Cervarix is contaminated with insect proteins (cabbage looper).
People will develop antibodies (including IgE) to ALL injected proteins, especially when vaccinated with aluminum adjuvant.
If you have anti-yeast antibodies, since yeast is everywhere, you can expect to develop numerous different immunological disorders as the body reacts to yeast exposure.
If you have anti-insect antibodies (against the cabbage looper larvae/moth), the exposure to the antigen is somewhat limited. Thus AEs may be less common.

Cervarix:
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM186981.pdf
“Following replication of the L1 encoding recombinant Baculovirus in
Trichoplusia ni insect cells, the L1 protein accumulates in the cytoplasm of the cells. ”

Gardasil:
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM111263.pdf
“The L1 proteins are produced by separate
fermentations in recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae and self-assembled into VLPs.” And S. cerevisiae is yeast.

Professional Misconduct by NAM Committee on Food Allergy
https://www.zenodo.org/record/1034559

“It’s not so easy for a vaccine to cause autoimmune disease.”

Sorry, as usual, you and Dr. Offit are ignoring facts.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM201349.pdf

“Among subjects with symptom onset
within 42 days of vaccination (days 12, 25, 29), 3/12049 [0.02%, 95% CI: (0.01% ,
0.07%)] MENVEO recipients and 0/2877 [0%, 95% CI: (0%, 0.13%)] control
recipients were diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease. “

“It’s not so easy for a vaccine to cause autoimmune disease.”

You made the GENERAL statement for ANY vaccine.

“extremely small number of cases”

Kawasaki disease occurs in approximately 1 in 10,000 children under 5 each year in the US.
This vaccine alone caused an ~300% increase.

So what caused it? Magic? One more of those vaccine/adverse event coincidences that seem to happen so often? Why 3X the background rate in the vaccinated group?

“The context was clear.”
Oh, so you agree other vaccines cause autoimmunity. Good.

And one more little problem. My original post said nothing about autoimmunity. But you responded talking about autoimmune disease. May be you should UNDERSTAND a post before you respond …?

Prof. Reiss, Vinu is an anti-vaxx crank who sees allergenic antigens callously and/or intentionally placed everywhere, particularly vaccines. He thinks he is an expert therefore scoffs at any actual experts who disagree with him.

PROTECTION AGAINST THE SEVERE FLU

Off topic but provided in the hope that someone may benefit …

Antihistamine treatment to prevent H3N2 infection induced “cytokine storm”

Last year’s influenza vaccine also contained the same H3N2 strain as this year’s vaccine (A/Hong Kong/4801/2014 (H3N2)-like virus).

Many people would have developed long term IgE mediated sensitization to the H3N2 viral proteins due to last year’s vaccine[1-3]⁠. Those who received the Flublok vaccine can be expected to have an even stronger IgE response due to its 3X viral protein content[4].

This year’s vaccine H3N2 proteins would have been neutralized by these IgE antibodies. Thus resulting in the observed low vaccine efficacy[5].⁠

When a person making anti-H3N2 IgE is infected with H3N2, one can expect the course of the flu to be significantly worse. So the “cytokine storm” being observed in severe cases is likely to be an infection concurrent with an allergic reaction.

A patient’s vaccination history and anti-H3N2 IgE status may be useful in determining treatment.

Antihistamine treatment may offer quick protection without the broad immunosuppressive effects of steroid treatment, which may be counterproductive during an infection.

References

Smith-Norowitz T a, Wong D, Kusonruksa M, Norowitz KB, Joks R, Durkin HG, et al. Long term persistence of IgE anti-influenza virus antibodies in pediatric and adult serum post vaccination with influenza virus vaccine. Int J Med Sci. 2011;8(3):239–44.
Davidsson A, Eriksson JC, Rudblad S, Brokstad KA. Influenza specific serum IgE is present in non-allergic subjects. Scand J Immunol. 2005 Dec;62(6):560–1.
Nakayama T, Kumagai T, Nishimura N, Ozaki T, Okafuji T, Suzuki E, et al. Seasonal split influenza vaccine induced IgE sensitization against influenza vaccine. Vaccine. 2015;
Arumugham V. Short sighted influenza control policy based on poorly designed vaccines will sicken more people [Internet]. Available from: https://www.zenodo.org/record/1038445
McLean HQ, Thompson MG, Sundaram ME, Meece JK, McClure DL, Friedrich TC, et al. Impact of repeated vaccination on vaccine effectiveness against influenza A(H3N2) and B during 8 seasons. Clin Infect Dis. 2014;59(10):1375–85.

Thankyou . . I did notice the original article was an opinion piece only . . Refreshing to read something that has scientific merit without a dollar sign attached to it .

She also had no previous problems after any of her normal vaccinations.

I wonder if the SaneVax ghouls would care to clarify what is so abnormal about HPV vaccinations, apart from preventing a sexually-transmissible disease

Chris complained of feeling dizzy, tired and she developed a rash on her neck. She had a post-vaccine cough and sinus congestion that wouldn’t go away.

There is a recurring pattern here. “We ignored our daughter’s health problems for weeks or months, until she died, at which point we realised that it must have been that vaccination.”

Vaccines are BSE prion free but contaminated with prionogenic yeast proteins?

We are assured that vaccines contaminated with bovine derived materials are:

“The bovine materials used in these extracts are sourced from countries
which the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has determined
neither have nor present an undue risk for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE).”
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM241874.pdf

How about prionogenic yeast proteins contaminating our yeast
(Saccharomyces cerevisiae) derived vaccines?

A systematic survey identifies prions and illuminates sequence features
of prionogenic proteins

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683788/

“We bioinformatically scanned the yeast genome for proteins with
prion-like character. We then subjected the highest-scoring candidates
to genetic, cell biological, and biochemical assays to discern their
prion-forming capacity, ultimately determining that at least 24 yeast
proteins contain a prion-forming domain.”

I was reading the FDA package insert for Gardasil (we should always trust FDA package inserts for vaccines, even though the FDA is Evil), and came across this startling admission re deaths in a Gardasil study group:

“The most common cause of death was motor vehicle accident (5 individuals who received GARDASIL and 4 individuals who received AAHS control), followed by drug overdose/suicide (2 individuals who received GARDASIL and 6 individuals who received AAHS control), gunshot wound (1 individual who received GARDASIL and 3 individuals who received AAHS control)”

https://www.fda.gov/downloads/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/approvedproducts/ucm11

The takeaway here is that getting the vaccine makes recipients only one third as likely to suffer drug overdoses or die of gunshot wounds.

Dang, we should make Gardasil mandatory for young people.

Out of how many vaccine doses? Do you think that it has been used less than fifty times? Remember that the Vaccine Court uses a more lenient standard than most courts. Plus legal rulings are not scientific evidence.

I should mention that news articles, especially from rags like that, are also not scientific evidence.

Not really. The cardiologists failed to follow up with a multi-day Holter moniter, so her heart rate was not monitored for any length of time. Plus the the “expert” Shoenfield is on this list:
http://vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html

He was paid for his testimony, and is in the Dwoskin payroll.

It was a legal ruling, with very lenient science requirements. Unfortunately there are many many ways for young people to die in their sleep or on an athletic field that cannot be seen by an echo. Pinning it on one vaccine is pretty much impossible.

Special Master Moran makes it clear in the ruling that Shoenfeld was a tendentious and non-credible witness, and that Shoenfeld’s theory of causation was unlikely but not completely absurd (which made it acceptable, under the ‘plausible’ wording of the law).

Moran also notes that the part of the ruling about “heart irregularity subsequent to vaccination” was a legal artefact: the question had been asked, “was heart irregularity present prior to vaccination?”, and the evidence could not prove definitively that it was, leaving “subsequent to vaccination” by default.

I admit to skimming. Though having a kid with a genetic heart disorder I have been exposed to too many “sudden cardiac death” stories. None of them mentioned vaccines.

Also, we are very familiar with Holter monitors. In his first year of high school he had one on for three days, he visited the school nurse when there was an issue with the electrode patches Her question to me was “Is there any else I need to know about him?”. By the way, there had been a sudden cardiac death in that school just a few years before.

It is strange one was never ordered. A Holter monitor is common after a heart anomaly that includes intermediate heart rates. My son never had a variation in heart rates unless it was a stress test. Well, not so much a heart rate as his blood pressure dropped as the abnormal heart muscle growth started to block his aortic valve. That was the extra heart tissue removed during open heart surgery.

“(which made it acceptable, under the ‘plausible’ wording of the law)”

Obviously the “plausible” is part of the the 50% plus a feather weight of ruling. Which is why legal rulings are definitely not scientific evidence.

Obviously the “plausible” is part of the the 50% plus a feather weight of ruling. Which is why legal rulings are definitely not scientific evidence.

No, this ruling grapples with the problem that “plausible” is not defined. The Special Master concludes that it is not the same as “likely” (50% plus a feather), or the precedents would have said “likely”. Therefore it must mean “improbable but not completely impossible”.

There are also paragraphs of the ruling where Moran’s eye-rolling is almost visible, because Shoenfeld went on about thyroid insufficiency and Hashimoto’s Disease, only to eventually admit that the issue was irrelevant to Christina’s death — he was only airing it as a way of hanging out his shingle for future expert-witness commissions.

Christina’s case is discussed in the article. I am truly sorry for her death and the court ruled in favor of compensation although the evidence was not strong enough to establish causation.

But years of use of the HPV vaccines do not show that they increase the risk of cardiac arrhythmia or deaths in general.

I just love when people post this crap and cite links to studies backed by Big Pharma!!

“flaws with any studies”

Where are the studies with a true placebo instead of a fake placebo (aluminum adjuvant or another vaccine containing aluminum adjuvant)?
Gardasil is a yeast ( saccharomyces cerevisiae) protein containing vaccine. Where are the studies that cover induction anti-saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA), following vaccination?

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