Gardasil/HPV Vaccine Alternative

So what do you do if you know you've been sexually active, but you don't want just anyone having that information....but you would like the peace of mind of being tested. You do it discreetly through this online lab service (they have 1700 labs throughout the US) and they will email you the results.

They also do "HIV" and cancer screening.

3/11/09 Researchers Suggest Insufficient Evidence of Efficacy of HPV Vaccine

3/20/09 CDC Takes Closer Look at Gardasil and Paralysis - US News & World Report

Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers were in a race against time to save their 15-year-old daughter, Jenny. As I reported last summer, Jenny developed a degenerative muscle disease nearly two years ago, soon after being vaccinated against the cervical-cancer-causing HPV. She became nearly completely paralyzed, though her mind was perfectly intact and she could still enjoy her pet parakeet, Hannah Montana, and Twilight.

I've been E-mailing Phil regularly over the past year, and up until our last E-mail, one week ago, he had been holding out hope that they would be able to find a cure for his daughter-or to at least determine if the human papillomavirus vaccine called Gardasil had caused his daughter's illness, most likely a juvenile form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (aka Lou Gehrig's disease). Sadly, the clock ran out last Sunday, and Jenny passed away. Read more...

Chronically ill girl eyes vaccine:
Rocky Moutain News

"Suddenly, Ashley Ryburn was sick all the time, and her mother didn't understand why.

Ashley, 16, played four sports, danced in her high school's show choir and earned top grades without even trying.

But now, Ashley was exhausted all the time. She was nauseated. She passed out at show choir and blacked out at school.

And then one day Ashley's legs went numb. She couldn't walk.

"You see somebody touch your legs and you can't feel it," Ashley recalled. "That's the scariest thing in the world."

For a year this has gone on: four episodes of temporary paralysis. Back spasms so painful Ashley would tell her mom "bye" and stop breathing. Hospitalizations. More 911 calls than Ashley can count. Trip after trip to doctors who couldn't seem to find anything wrong.

"I've heard so many times I'm crazy, I'm bulimic, I'm on drugs," Ashley said. "It's not your first thought that it's a vaccine."

A vaccine? Lisa Holtman is convinced that's what turned her perfectly healthy daughter into a chronically ill teenager.

In August and October 2007, Ashley was given doses of Gardasil, a vaccine recommended for adolescent girls to prevent cervical cancer. Her first Gardasil shot was given in conjunction with a meningitis vaccine.

The combination is said to be safe - and is commonly administered - but Gardasil was never clinically tested with the meningitis vaccine.

Research from the National Vaccine Information Center indicates reactions to Gardasil increase when it is given with the meningitis shot. But Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said general guidelines allow for two or three inactivated vaccines, such as the HPV and meningitis vaccines, to be given at the same time without expecting increased rates of adverse reactions.

The meningitis vaccine was not available when Gardasil began clinical testing, so the Food and Drug Administration agreed to test it post-licensure, Halsey said.

Results of those tests are expected to be released soon.

"There is no reason that I know of that there may be an increased risk of any serious complications associated with the simultaneous administration of these two inactive or killed vaccines," Halsey said in a recent interview.

Ashley didn't receive any other shots with her second dose of Gardasil. It was a month or so after the second Gardasil vaccine that she started getting sick.

"She didn't go to the doctor at all, then after she got the shots, it's boom, boom, boom," Holtman said. "We haven't stopped."

Across the country, there are reports of girls like Ashley becoming chronically ill, and even dying, after being vaccinated with Gardasil - raising questions about whether the vaccine is indeed safe and if there has been enough testing done on its side effects.

Gardasil, manufactured by Merck and Co., was licensed in 2006 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Merck both say the vaccination is safe. So does Dr. Judith Shlay, director of the immunization and travel clinic at Denver Health Medical Center.

Shlay says Denver Health administers thousands of vaccines each year, including Gardasil, and rarely has any problems. The biggest issue with Gardasil was reports of adolescent girls fainting, but Shlay said Denver Health devised a protocol that involved monitoring teens before they left and that has alleviated the concern.

"It's considered a very safe vaccine," Shlay said. "We haven't seen people get sick from it."

As of Aug. 31, the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had logged 10,326 reports of reactions to Gardasil, according to the CDC. Of those reports, 94 percent were considered to be "nonserious."

The serious reports included Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness, blood clots and death. Each incident was "carefully analyzed by medical experts," the CDC said in a report last updated in October.

"Experts have not found a common medical pattern to the reports of serious adverse events reported for Gardasil that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine," the CDC said.

'No safety issue'

Merck issued its own statement in July, saying it was "proud of the public health benefit that Gardasil can provide in helping to prevent cervical cancer" and maintaining that "no safety issue related to the vaccine has been identified."

Still, in 2007 and 2008, Gardasil accounted for about 20 percent of reactions reported to VAERS, said Barbara Loe Fisher, co- founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a watchdog group in Virginia.

Fisher calls the percentage "unusual" given that Gardasil is new and isn't mandated.

"This is a whitewash of this vaccine. To say that almost 10,000 reports of reactions, injuries, 30 deaths is all a coincidence is simply not scientifically responsible," Fisher said. "You have perfectly healthy girls go in and get this shot and then suffer a pattern, a very clear pattern of injury, and some of them are dying. This is not acceptable."

The side effects all look a lot like what's been happening to Ashley, Fisher said: brain inflammation, immune system dysfunction, tingling and numbness in the hands, feet and legs, severe headaches, strokes, joint pain, muscle weakness, seizures and memory loss.

"Usually, these girls are very high functioning," Fisher said. "They're honor roll students. They're athletes. They're usually in extremely good health before they have a severe downward turn after receiving one or more Gardasil vaccinations."

But Halsey, of the Institute for Vaccine Safety, said people need to be "very careful not to jump on the bandwagon" that vaccines caused illness. Such allegations have surfaced before only to be disproved in resulting studies.

Serious allergic reactions to the HPV vaccine are rare, about one in a million, putting them in "the same ballpark" as any other vaccine, Halsey said.

"The evidence does not support a causal relationship," he said. "It's much more likely to be coincidental."

Can't go back

Still, Ashley's life looks nothing like it did before Gardasil. Her days consist mostly of going to school, coming home and sleeping. Her hair falls out in clumps. Her nausea is ever present. Her blood pressure drops dangerously low. She can't breathe.

Ashley looks back on pictures of summer camp just before she received the first Gardasil shot. She is saddling horses, hoisting a counselor for fun and leg wrestling.

"It hurts to know that if I went back to that day in my health now, I couldn't do it," Ashley said. "I can't do those things anymore."

Ashley received her vaccinations in Iowa before she and her mother moved to Arvada. It was recommended during a routine physical. Since then, Ashley has had to quit sports and her grades have slipped from A's and B's to B's and C's. Most of the time, she can't remember what she's read from one day to the next.

When she tried out for basketball at her high school this year, her legs were shaking and she couldn't breathe after two drills. Ashley cried.

She takes a handful of pills every day and has to carry a special bag of medical supplies in case she has an "episode."

Even when Ashley has good days, she knows the twitches in her back and the funny feeling in the back of her head will always come back, signaling another episode. Her blood pressure will plummet. She will hear her mother or her boyfriend talking to her, but she won't be able to answer. She will have trouble breathing and she will pass out.

"If I had never got the shot, I would be a normal teenager," Ashley said. "I wish I could go back."

Genital human papillomavirus (HPV)

* Most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States

* At least half of sexually active people will have it at some point in their lives, accodring to CDC estimates. There often are no symptoms, and it usually goes away on its own without causing any serious health problems.

IM

Little has been mentioned about an alternative (other than vaccination) for guarding against HPV.

One scientific study has shown that a lubricant with a seaweed extract called carrageenan can prevent human papillomavirus (HPV).

Derived from red algae, researchers have found that it strongly inhibits HPV from attaching to human cells.

Carrageenan is used as a thickener in many products, including baby formula..so it is completely safe to ingest.

You can find lubricants with carrageenan at any drug store, and in my opinion, it would be a much safer to use for those that are sexually active than a vaccination that has unknown long term possible side affects.

So why hasn't this been all over the news?

Known also as Lapacho, and Taheebo, packs a punch against HPV with the added bonuses of being antibacterial, anti-parastic, anti-cancerous, anti-candida, and antifungal.

Besides being a natural antibacterial, Pau d'Arco also builds the immune system, cleanses the blood, kills viruses, and increases resistance to disease.

It can be bought in tea form or as a tincture. If you are infected with HPV, drink 2-3 cups a day until you're cleared of the disease. To use the tincture, just follow the directions on the bottle.

As a preventative, use 2-3 times a week to build your immune system and help stop viral infections from occurring.

Researchers have used Pau d'Arco for AIDS, inflammation of all types, allergies, all types of cancer, as a blood builder, for liver disease, diabetes, warts, Hodgkins disease, lupus, malaria, polyps and many other diseases, so it's usefulness has long been established.

Wouldn't it be wiser to use something that is all natural and more gentle on your body...then something that no one knows the end results?

The only advisable restriction on using this herb is that of not being used by anyone that is pregnant.