By ADMIN in FEATURED, VACCINES/Gaia Health
As apparent adverse effects from the Gardasil vaccine mount, Merck decided to do some public relations control. They initiated, controlled, and paid for a piece of pseudo science to trot out as proof that the vaccine doesn’t cause harm. We’d expect them to do that. Buying the appearance of science is a typical Big Pharma method for selling its products.
But Medscape is giving away a Continuing Medical Education (CME) online class in support of the study. There isn’t a single word in the brief course to indicate that the study might be questionable. Though there’s a statement of conflicts of interest, cut and pasted from the study, tacked on at the end, there’s no requirement that the course takers actually read it.
The Study
Surveillance of autoimmune conditions following routine use of quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine was published by the journal Internal Medicine in November 2011. The authors claimed that the only disease increase that showed up was for Hashimoto’s disease, a severe autoimmune disorder of the thyroid. Even that they softened by claiming that no evidence of “temporal relationship and biological plausibility revealed no consistent evidence for a safety signal for autoimmune thyroid conditions”.
So what’s wrong with the study? First, we always need to determine how it was funded, who controlled the study, and what relationship the researchers have with anyone who might profit from the results. In this study, the blatancy of conflicts of interest is astounding:
- Merck, the Gardasil vaccine’s manufacturer, funded the study.
- Merck controlled how the study was done.
- The lead authors, C. Chao and S. J. Jacobsen, plus J. M. Slezak, have received research funding from Merck in the past.
- S. J. Jacobsen served as a Merck consultant.
- N. P. Klein currently receives Merck funding.
- C. M. Velicer and K. L. Liaw are Merck employees.
- Merck was involved in the analysis, and manuscript drafting and revision.
We could stop right here and know that this study is a farce. But we’ll delve into it just a bit more.
Read the entire article here.
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