Gardasil Risks Magnified for Sexually Active Women and Expectant Mothers
In the face of increasing reports of adverse events and death rates that are 400% higher than other vaccines, Merck continues to maintain that its controversial Gardasil vaccine is safe and continues to push for wider use.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Jan 19, 2011 – One group Merck would especially like to gain approval for is older women (currently, the vaccine is not approved for women over 27 years old). Despite Merck’s claims to the contrary, studies have actually shown that Gardasil and its sister vaccine Cervarix (from GlaxoSmithKline) provide no protection for women already exposed to the HPV virus and in fact present highly elevated risks for already exposed women as well as for expectant mothers.

The more sexually active a woman is, the greater the chances she will become exposed to HPV viruses. Likewise, the older a woman is the more sexual encounters she will likely have had and thus the greater the risk of HPV exposure. Information provided for the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) in May 2006 revealed that when the vaccine is administered to a woman with a dormant or harmless form of HPV, the virus can become activated, increasing the likelihood of precancerous lesions developing by a staggering 44.6 percent.

Not one to let negative study results stand in the way of a highly profitable cash cow drug (see Vioxx), Merck decided that the groups in the study were “unbalanced” and played with the figures to eliminate women who were at higher risk to begin with. After the figure juggling the added risk was estimated to be only 11 percent.