RE: Challenge Issued to Republican Presidential Candidate, Michelle Bachmann
September 18, 2011
Dear Dr. Caplan:
On behalf of the parents of a group of neurologically injured teenage girls after HPV vaccination, we feel obligated to question your ‘bio’-ethics as you challenge Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann with a $10,000 bet to prove a claim that a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer caused mental retardation. We represent many parents of teenage girls who have suffered a variety of central nervous system (CNS) dysfunctions, including various degrees of mental ‘retardation’ (impairment) as a sequelae of Gardasil® vaccination injuries. It is hard to believe that as bioethicist you openly instigate violation of the HIPAA law.
Do you accept the standard medical teaching that mental retardation may be the sequelae of an inflammatory pathology of the brain, namely encephalitis, in the surviving patients1? We do. If you do not, please cite some peer-reviewed, published studies to support your argument.
The SANE Vax team has found seven reports published in various peer-reviewed medical journals, documenting HPV vaccination as the most likely cause of a hitherto poorly understood and probably autoimmune-based inflammatory disease involving the central nervous system, including various parts of the brain2-8.
The authors, reviewers and editors of these articles all felt that a highly unusual CNS pathology following Gardasil® vaccination needs to be brought to the attention of the world’s medical community because the inflammatory pathology and its pathogenesis cannot be easily explained; it is apparently autoimmune-based.
This letter is to inform you that SANE Vax Inc., representing parents whose daughters have been injured by the Gardasil® vaccination, have reported to the FDA that the currently marketed Gardasil® is probably 100% contaminated by recombinant HPV DNA firmly bound to amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate adjuvant9.
This HPV DNA/aluminum complex may mediate an immunotoxic reaction leading to some of the inflammatory neurodegenerative disorders observed in the Gardasil® victims, similar to the mechanism observed in experimental animals10.
We suggest you visit the CDC HPV Vaccine VAERS Reports site to see the prevalence of various sequelae after the patients recovered from the acute phase of CNS injuries.
Now, SANE Vax Inc. challenges you, Dr. Caplan. Prove the vaccine Gardasil® has prevented a single case of cervical cancer. We have not found such a case in the world literature, or in the published clinical trial materials. The endpoints used for evaluating the efficacy of Gardasil® were largely self-reversible precancerous changes, not true cancer as defined in any pathology textbooks.
At least two proven invasive cervical cancers developed shortly after HPV vaccination have been reported in medical literature. According to the report, one of the young patients had received a full course of HPV vaccination when she was enrolled in a clinical trial for which the subjects must be pre-screened to be cytology-negative before enrollment. The HPV-found in her cancer was HPV-3111, subsequently recognized as a vaccine-relevant genotype due to “cross reaction” and “cross protection”.
How would you, Dr. Caplan, justify the vaccination from the standpoint of a bioethicist when the vaccine may have actually accelerated an undetectable precancerous change associated with a vaccine-relevant HPV to a clinical invasive cancer with lymphatic invasion?
Yours respectfully, Norma Erickson, President SANE Vax, Inc. Signed on behalf of the Board of Directors, SANE Vax Inc. Leslie Carol Botha, Vice President of Public Relations Janny Stokvis, Vice President of Research Rosemary Mathis, Vice President of Victim Support Freda Birrell, Secretary Linda Thompson, Treasurer
References:
1) Palmer RJ, Finley KH. Sequelae of encephalitis; report of a study after the California epidemic. Calif Med. 1956 Feb;84(2):98-100.
2) Sutton I, Lahoria R, Tan I, Clouston P, Barnett M. CNS demyelination and quadrivalent HPV vaccination. Mult Scler. 2009; 15(1):116-119.
3) Wildemann B, Jarius S, Hartmann M, Regula JU, Hametner C. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis following vaccination against human papilloma virus. Neurology. 2009 Jun 16;72(24):2132-3. Neurology. 2009 Jun 16;72(24):2132-3.
4) Mendoza Plasencia Z, González López M, Fernández Sanfiel ML, Muñiz Montes JR. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis with tumefactive lesions after vaccination against human papillomavirus Neurologia. 2010 Jan-Feb;25(1):58-9.
5) Chang J, Campagnolo D, Vollmer TL, Bomprezzi R. Demyelinating disease and polyvalent human papilloma virus vaccination. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2010 Oct 9. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2010.214924
6) DiMario FJ Jr, Hajjar M, Ciesielski T. A 16-year-old girl with bilateral visual loss and left hemiparesis following an immunization against human papilloma virus. J Child Neurol. 2010 Mar;25(3):321-7.
7) Balamoutsos G, Bouktsi M, Paschalidou M, Tascos N, Milonas I. A report of five cases of CNS demyelination after quadrivalent human papilloma virus vaccination: could there be any relationship? (Abstract No. P297)- Poster Access : www.guthyjacksonfoundation.org/services/download.php?2297.pdf+374
8) RossiM, BettiniC, Pagano C. Bilateral papilledema following human papillomavirus vaccination. J Med Cases. 2011: 2:222-224.
10) Marichal T, Ohata K, Bedoret D, Mesnil C, Sabatel C, Kobiyama K, Lekeux P, Coban C, Akira S, Ishii KJ, Bureau F, Desmet CJ. DNA released from dying host cells mediates aluminum adjuvant activity. Nat Med. 2011 Jul 17;17(8):996-1002.
11) Beller U, Abu-Rustum NR. Cervical cancers after human papillomavirus vaccination. Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Feb;113(2 Pt 2):550-2.
Below is Dr. Caplan’s response to the letter above. Obviously, he did not understand the entire point of the letter.
Find the case, present it to michelle bachmann, let the doctors we agree on confirm HPV vaccine as the cause and I pay. You have until thursday.
Arthur Caplan
Emanuel & Robert Hart Director of
the Center for Bioethics
and Sidney D Caplan Professor of
Medical Ethics
University of Pennsylvania
3401 Market St. Suite 320
Phila PA 19104-3308
http://bioethics.upenn.edu
http://www.med.upenn.edu/mbe/
Dr. Caplan please watch the sequelae of autoimmune-based inflammatory neurodegeneration disorders in real life after Gardasil if the patients survived the acute phase of encephalitis. This link provides more than one case.
OPEN LETTER TO DR CAPLAN
Dear Dr Caplan
I would like to offer you $10,000 to you to prove that Gardasil did not and does not cause the issues discussed by Ms Bachman and others – as outlined above. Of course when I win, you might care to donate the monies to SANE Vax. However and unlike your gutless prove it by Thursday deadline – I am happy to keep this offer open for a while.
On a personal note I find it revolting that a ‘bioethicist” would engage in such a bet. Surely your responsibilities are to investigate, consider and approach this with an open mind. But I guess you have long since not been a “real” bioethicist and now are really a “vaxapologist”!
One more question will the $10,000 be sourced from your pockets or from the bioethics centre? As you know, but perhaps many others don’t know, funding for the center comes from a range of sources – including the NIH http://www.bioethics.upenn.edu/funding.shtml, which as we say down-under has ‘skin in the game” by being a co-patent holder for Gardasil and receives royalties from its sale.
A wee bit of a conflict of interest and perhaps a challenge for you and your supposed ethics! Interesting that this was not disclosed by you!
Come on ‘man up’, disclose your conflicts and take up the challenge!
Stephen Tunley
Sydney Australia
Father of Chescia Tunley – yet another young woman damaged by Gardasil.
Just an update, nothing from Dr Caplan, which I guess is no surprise.
In my experience bullies when exposed for what they are, often disappear.
But just in case you are hovering around the edges Dr Caplan, I again offer the challenge and remind you of your responsibilities and those of all in the medical professions…first do no harm!
Even if you dont take up the challenge will you at least agree (from the viewpoint of ethics of course!) that in all future pronouncements or heavens forbid – juvenile bets – that you will disclose any and all of your potential conflicts?
Regards
Stephen Tunley