Tuesday, August 05, 2008

HPV Vaccine Blamed for Teen's Paralysis

I've gotten a lot of questions about whether to HPV or not. I cannot tell you what to do, only that you should educate yourself, weigh the risks and benefits, and then make an informed decision.

Our extremely wise neurologist said to us, "It's difficult to build a house, easy to knock it down." I tend to the idea of respecting the immune system.

This is from the Mercola.com site:
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A month after 13 year old Jenny Tetlock was vaccinated against the HPV virus, she missed the lowest hurdle in gym class. It was the first sign of a degenerative muscle disease that 15 months later left her nearly completely paralyzed.

Her father, Philip Tetlock, a professor at UC-Berkeley, has embarked on an odyssey to find out whether the vaccine, Gardasil, is to blame.

Tetlock is not the only one concerned. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch has been periodically obtaining adverse event reports on Gardasil from the FDA. 10 deaths have been linked to Gardasil since September 2007, and there have been 140 reports so far this year of serious side effects such as miscarriage and Guillain-Barré syndrome.