Japan: International Medical Researchers Issue Warning about HPV Vaccine Side Effects

By Norma Erickson

The International Symposium on the adverse reactions experienced by girls who have been vaccinated by Human Papillomavirus vaccines and subsequent events which took place in Tokyo on February 25^th and 26^th have sparked a high-profile debate over HPV vaccine safety, efficacy and need.

The Researchers’ Organization Sounding a Warning concerning the Adverse Reactions induced by Human Papillomavirus Vaccines, led by Dr. Harumi Sakai, a former professor of Tokai University, School of Medicine and a former leader at the immunochemical research team at Texas University, Galveston, reported that Sin Hang Lee, MD, former Associate Professor at Yale University and currently  pathologist of Milford Hospital, Dr. Francois Jerome Authier, MD, a professor at Universite Paris XII and a doctor at Systeme Hospital Henri Mondor de Paris, and research fellow Lucija Tomljenovic, a PhD from the University of British Columbia, presented evidence regarding the risks involved with HPV vaccines during the symposium, two press conferences and a government-sponsored public hearing on February 26^th.

The public hearing was attended by eight medical academic members of the Japanese government’s Advisory Council on the Alleged Adverse Reactions to HPV Vaccines, several top-ranking Health Ministry bureaucrats, medical doctors and journalists from the nation’s major newspapers and television networks.

The non-Japanese academics and Dr. Sakai presented scientific data supporting several biologically plausible mechanisms of action by which HPV vaccines could cause devastating autoimmune and auto-inflammatory conditions whose symptoms are identical to those reported by HPV vaccine recipients in Japan and around the world.

Brief Synopsis of Scientific/Medical Evidence Presented:

• Dr. Sin Hang Lee – HPV L-1 Gene DNA in Gardasil and Its Potential Effects
• Dr. Jerome Authier – Biopersistance and Neuro migration of Particles after Intramuscular Injection – Impact of long-term safety of aluminum adjuvants
• Lucija Tomljenovic, PhD – Three Deaths Following Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination: Coincidence?
• Dr. Mirna Hajjar – A 16-Year-Old Girl With Bilateral Visual Loss and Left Hemiparesis Following an Immunization Against Human Papilloma Virus – case report

The scientific information presented by the medical experts at the public hearing and news conferences may help Japanese lawmakers and other policy makers make right decisions and put forward recommendations concerning the future of the current HPV vaccination policy program for the best of their citizens. 

The current official theory that the government relies on to explain the numerous reports of serious symptoms among the teenage girls vaccinated with the HPV vaccines — Gardasil and Cervarix — was published in January by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The nine-paragraph government document is entitled, “The Outline of the Results of Deliberations Which Have Been Held So Far Concerning Human Papilloma Virus Vaccines at the Advisory Council for the Deliberations of the Alleged Adverse Reactions to HPV Vaccines.”

The official document states:

“Deliberations were held on the cases that have been reported as side effects of the human papilloma virus vaccines following their vaccinations, mainly as intense pains at various parts of vaccine recipients’ bodies and as the recipients’ movement impairments and the following joint understandings (among the members of the advisory council) were obtained.”

The most problematic among the seven joint understandings explained by the documents is as follows:

“The following theories can be considered as the mechanism that could cause the symptoms reported in connection with the present problem (1) neurological disorders (2) poisoning (3) immunological reactions (4) psychosomatic reactions. The theories from (1) to (3) cannot explain these symptoms, so the symptoms are regarded as the consequence of psychosomatic reactions in the (4).”

The document’s final paragraph said the advisory council “will draw up a draft report to the government and hold deliberations concerning the appropriateness of restarting an active recommendation of the HPV vaccination in the council’s next meeting scheduled for February 26 and in subsequent meetings.”

But Dr. Sin Hang Lee said even if the government seeks to explain away the adverse reactions experienced by these vaccinated girls as psychosomatic reactions, such theory cannot be deemed logical and scientific.

Dr. Lee noted that no scientists at the Feb. 26 public hearing — at which he reported his detections of HPV DNA fragments in 16 unopened  vials of Gardasil sent to Milford Medical Laboratory Inc. from nine countries and in the postmortem blood and spleen samples obtained at the autopsy of the 18-year-old New Zealand girl who died after Gardasil vaccination — could raise their hands when he asked them to do so if they believe that psychosomatic reactions can cause sudden unexpected death in sleep among young girls or cause the clearly visible lesions captured with the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method as well as the histopathology lesions reported in patients of post-Gardasil acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) and multiple sclerosis.

When Dr. Lee referred to the lesions demonstrated by the MRI method and by the pathological photographic evidence of inflammation in the brain of a 16-year-old Connecticut girl who has lost her vision completely since the 10th day from her second Gardasil shot in 2007, he was speaking on behalf of the treating physician, Dr. Mirna Hajjar who was also present among the audience at the Tokyo public hearing.

This previously healthy girl, the patient, presented to the emergency room in 2007 with an acute onset of visual loss over 48 hours and left hemiparesis. She “was found to have both a tumefactive demyelinating lesion and chiasmal neuritis as part of a presentation of acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis,” according to the medical report that was published on the March 2010 issue of the Journal of Child Neurology (Vol.25, pages 321-327.)

The photomicrographs were taken of the biopsy of her brain by a medical doctor of a research team led by Francois DiMario, MD, Mirna Hajjar, MD and Thomas Ciesielski, MD (the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut, and the Departments of Pediatrics at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Department of Neurology and Pathology at Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut).

The photomicrographs of the brain biopsy demonstrated demyelination and a vessel cuffed with lymphocytes and surrounded by infiltrating macrophages.

Dr. Hajjar who played a crucial role by giving her courageous scientific testimony at the Tokyo news conference on Feb. 26 is one of the three coauthors of the medical report which appeared on the Journal of Child Neurology.

When asked about key developments at the public hearing, Dr. Sin Hang Lee stated:

“As a pathologist, it is my duty to find plausible mechanisms of action for sudden unexpected death and unexplained acute disseminated (demyelinating) encephalomyelitis after HPV vaccination, and I have proposed such a scientifically plausible mechanism based on known DNA transfection by nanoparticles of aluminum/ DNA complexes.

The opposing opinion (against my position) is that all symptoms and signs manifested by the post-HPV vaccinated girls were the results of psychosomatic reactions.

I do not believe psychosomatic reactions can cause sudden unexpected death in sleep, or inflammatory lesions in the brain as demonstrated by the MRI images and the brain biopsy histopathology with perivascular lymphocytes and macrophages and demyelination.

I asked the scientists at the public hearing to raise their hands if they really believe that psychosomatic reactions can cause a sudden unexpected death in sleep and a brain inflammation.

Then I stated on record that I do not see anyone raising hands in the audience-to conclude my rebuttal.”

The term “transfection” used in Dr. Lee’s testimony means a process of introducing foreign DNA into human cells by non-viral vehicles, such as the aluminum/DNA complex nanoparticles.

The debate over HPV vaccination policy in Japan is not finished.

One set of participants led by Dr. Lee and Professor Authier has proposed scientifically plausible mechanisms of action.    

The other side declared in the Japanese government document that these events are the consequences of psychosomatic reactions.

However, these foreign scientists and some Japanese intellectuals have demonstrated their courage by becoming catalysts with which the HPV vaccine-related health issue was debated for the benefits of the general public with nationwide media coverage.

Let’s hope politicians and intellectuals worldwide follow their example and take actions that could cause similar scientific debates to be held in their own countries to defend and save the future health of millions of teenage girls.

Let us hope that scientific evidence will outweigh the psychosomatic theory which may be threatening to mislead the general public worldwide into attributing all symptoms at vaccinated girls to psychological problems on the part of vaccinated girls.

If theories similar or essentially identical to this irrational and irresponsible theory were allowed to proliferate across the world with no conscientious scientists or intellectuals stepping forward to refute the pseudo-scientific theories, the health of many more young people could be devastated.

Read the French translation of this article here.

Photos: 

First photo: Left to right: Keiko Sakaguchi and Dr Rokuro Hama (MD), Francois Jerome Authier, Lucija Tomljenovic (PhD), Dr. Mirna Hajjar, Dr. Sin Hang Lee, Dr. Harumi Sakai (MD), Dr Shunichi Shiozawa (MD, PhD)

Second photo: Dr. Myrna Hajjir, Lucija Tomljenovic PhD, Dr. Francois-Jerome Authier, Dr. Sin Hang Lee and Dr. Harumi Sakai

Third photo: Government-Sponsored Public Hearing of the Health Ministry’s Advisory Council for the Deliberations on the Reported Adverse Events of HPV Vaccines, February 26, 2014