Are vaccines safe?
So we might expect the BBC to cover the HPV vaccine story according to these principles. So how did it do? The story, in brief, was that 1 in 3 girls, in some parts of the UK, did not have their full HPV vaccination in 2017-2018 against HPV, the virus that is thought to cause cervical cancer. In this blog I will use the words of the article itself to demonstrate its coverage, adding my own comments as we move through their article.
"While the national target of immunising 80% of girls is being met, the rate varied between local authority areas. In total 57,048 girls did not receive the two doses required for the vaccine to be effective. Public Health England (PHE) said the vaccine programme was 'stable and consistent'."
This is presumably a statement of fact, passed to the BBC by PHE. I have no reason to doubt its accuracy. To discuss the issue further the BBC brought in the charity, 'Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust' whose spokesperson is quoted as saying that "... educating parents and young people about the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine was 'essential'.
No problem with that either. Education is vital, as long as that education is accurate, impartial and fair. But 'education' should not, of course, be confused with 'indoctrination'. In the former, all points of view are covered. In the latter there is just one point of view, and this is unquestioningly the approach taken by the BBC article. For education read "people need to be told about the importance of vaccination!".
IS THE HPV VACCINE SAFE?
So before proceeding through the BBC article, let's look at some other statistics about the HPV vaccine, not mentioned in it, but which might be of some importance and interest to parents, and their young daughters.
1. WDDTY reported in 2013 that it had been calculated that 1,700 young girls had been killed or suffered permanent disability after being given the HPV vaccine, and a further 19,500 had suffered 'non-serious' reactions.
2. This Vac Truth article provides VAERS (USA Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) statistics showing that the HPV vaccine has caused the following adverse reactions in the USA, up to 2013:
"The announcement is in stark contrast to the pronouncement last week by health officials in the United States that vaccination rates in teenage girls should be increased after a study concluded that estimated vaccine effectiveness is 'high'."
Japan did not suspend the vaccine, but it instructed local governments that it should not be promoted whilst the concern about adverse effects, such as long-term pain and numbness, were investigated.
The BBC article mentioned none of these concerns. It did not ask any organisation that has these concerns to comment. As will be seen, the only people they asked about the vaccine were people, and organisations that are part of the conventional medical establishment!
IS THE HPV VACCINE EFFECTIVE?
So if the BBC felt it was not sufficientlynimportant to inform us about safety concerns, did they say anything about the effectiveness of the vaccine? Again, the BBC article is unequivocal on this matter, entirely content to rely entirely on NHS statements about the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine.
"The NHS said the vaccine was 'effective at stopping girls from getting the types of HPV that cause most cervical cancers' but it was 'important to have both doses to be properly protected'."
That's it. Moreover, the entire article is based upon an unquestioned assumption about its effectiveness. Too many young girls are not having the vaccine, to too many women are dying of cervical cancer - and the two are linked.
"PHE statistics showed vaccination rates ranged from about two thirds of year nine girls in some parts of London to more than nine out of 10 in other areas, such as North Yorkshire, Tameside and Portsmouth. Cervical cancer remains the most common cancer in women under 35 and kills about 850 a year."
So should the BBC have raised questions the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine. This Child Health Safety article, again published as long ago as 2013 (the information has been around for a long time), outlines some of the scientific evidence that the HPV vaccine is not only dangerous, but also wrongly promoted as capable of preventing cancer. The evidence the produced questions the inadequacy of the testing regime, which has come under serious investigation, and found it to be seriously flawed. The research reveals that the
"... scientific and factual evidence that the data behind claims that HPV vaccines prevent cancers and save lives with no risk of serious side effects are 'optimistic' and contrary to the evidence and largely are from significant misinterpretation of available data which is 'presented to the public as factual evidence'."
None of this evidence is mentioned by the by the NHS in its new release, or the BBC in its article reporting on the issue. The assumptions made throughout the article are three-fold, that the vaccine is:
The conventional medical establishment DOES know this. This BMC article, "HPV vaccines and cancer prevention, science versus activism" says as much.
"The rationale behind current worldwide human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination programs starts from two basic premises, 1) that HPV vaccines will prevent cervical cancers and save lives and, 2) have no risk of serious side effects. Therefore, efforts should be made to get as many pre-adolescent girls vaccinated in order to decrease the burden of cervical cancer. Careful analysis of HPV vaccine pre- and post-licensure data shows however that both of these premises are at odds with factual evidence and are largely derived from significant misinterpretation of available data." (My emphasis).
Clearly this does not stop the conventional medical establishment, and its vested interests, from claiming that it is safe and effective, but it should encourage the BBC to investigate the claims being made for the vaccine. It totally fails to do so.
The BBC article goes on to relate a case example which supports and highlights the message - it is important for all young girls to have the HPV vaccine, and that there should be no concerns about its safety or effectiveness. It concerns a mother who had cervical cancer, and who has explained to her daughter how the vaccine could "save her life". She says it is "the best protection" for girls, that she is keen that her daughter receives the vaccine as she knows, from personal experience, "how potentially devastating cervical cancer can be". The mother goes on to explain that talking about the vaccine may be "difficult to address with children" as it was connected with "sexual activity", and that some mothers "don't want their daughters to have it because they say it encourages 'promiscuity' but that is "quite a naive approach to take with this vaccine."
There is nothing wrong with relating personal experiences, including a mother with a strong personal interest and opinion on the matter. But once again the BBC fails to offer any balance. Where are the stories of healthy young girls whose lives have been compromised by the HPV vaccine? There are plenty of them. I wrote this in a previous blog, "The HPV Vaccine. We need to protect our daughters from this."
"There are now, on the internet, hundreds of articles outlining the personal and family tragedy that this vaccine has caused, and continues to cause. It can be likened to a game of Russian Roulette. You may, or you may not be damaged. But dangerous drugs and vaccines should not be regarded as a statistical matter. They represent human and family tragedy, all of them hard to read about. But here are a selection of these tragedies, about people who lost the game, and taken from the internet.
So the BBC blames the social media for such views. The article refers to another one of its articles, Parents' vaccine side effects fear 'fuelled by social media', published in January 2019. This article is equally inaccurate, partial and unfair.
VACCINE UPTAKE, AND INFORMED PATIENT CHOICE
So has the reason for low uptake been missed? Could the real reason for low uptake be none of the things the BBC chose to mention? Could it not be that some people have become aware that vaccines (nor least the HPV vaccine) are not safe, or effective, and that scare stories (have the vaccine or risk cancer) no longer hold sway over their decision-making?
If the public had access to ALL the information about vaccines there would probably be many more people opting out of vaccination. If the BBC understood that informed patient choice was important - if they realised that their journalism was failing adequately to inform the public - that merely parroting the message of the conventional medicine is not good journalism - if the BBC offered its license payers more comprehensive, more accurate, more impartial, and fairer information on health issues more people would be able to make an informed choice, and there would undoubtedly be many more people refusing to accept vaccination.
- Your doctor will tell you they are. After all, they prescribe them so they would not be expected to say anything else!
- The Conventional Medical Establishment will tell you they are. After all, they have been tested, pronounced to be safe and effective, and have instructed doctors to prescribe them!
So what is all this stuff we hear about vaccine injury? Why are all these parents saying that their children have been damaged by vaccines? Why is the Vaccine Injury Compensation scheme in the USA paying out $millions every year to people who have been vaccine damaged?
It's all nonsense, of course. Worse than nonsense too. Criticism of vaccines, we are now told, is a “global health threat” so anyone who questions the safety of vaccines can now be labeled 'dangerous” to society, stopping people from getting important medication.
And in any case, if conventional medicine was giving us pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that were harmful to our health, they would tell us. Wouldn't they? And even if our doctors didn't tell us, we can rely on the free press, our mainstream media, to do so. Can't we?
And in any case, if conventional medicine was giving us pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that were harmful to our health, they would tell us. Wouldn't they? And even if our doctors didn't tell us, we can rely on the free press, our mainstream media, to do so. Can't we?
So let's examine what the mainstream media tell us about the safety of vaccines. Recently the BBC published a story about the HPV vaccine. in an article HPV vaccine: Thousands of girls did not get full dose. I pick on the BBC as it is part of our 'free press', but more than this, it is a public service broadcaster. Unlike other news organisations it does not have to 'earn a living' by selling advertising to commercial interests, it is paid for by the annual license fee. It does not have the same problem many news organisations have, where pharmaceutical company advertising can represent up to 70% of their advertising income. The BBC has no such vested interests, no requirement to protect the hand that feeds them!
Moreover, the BBC is constrained by its Editorial Guidelines, which means that, amongst other things, that they are obliged to report to us in a way that is:
- Accurate
- Impartial
- Fair
"While the national target of immunising 80% of girls is being met, the rate varied between local authority areas. In total 57,048 girls did not receive the two doses required for the vaccine to be effective. Public Health England (PHE) said the vaccine programme was 'stable and consistent'."
This is presumably a statement of fact, passed to the BBC by PHE. I have no reason to doubt its accuracy. To discuss the issue further the BBC brought in the charity, 'Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust' whose spokesperson is quoted as saying that "... educating parents and young people about the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine was 'essential'.
No problem with that either. Education is vital, as long as that education is accurate, impartial and fair. But 'education' should not, of course, be confused with 'indoctrination'. In the former, all points of view are covered. In the latter there is just one point of view, and this is unquestioningly the approach taken by the BBC article. For education read "people need to be told about the importance of vaccination!".
IS THE HPV VACCINE SAFE?
So before proceeding through the BBC article, let's look at some other statistics about the HPV vaccine, not mentioned in it, but which might be of some importance and interest to parents, and their young daughters.
1. WDDTY reported in 2013 that it had been calculated that 1,700 young girls had been killed or suffered permanent disability after being given the HPV vaccine, and a further 19,500 had suffered 'non-serious' reactions.
2. This Vac Truth article provides VAERS (USA Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) statistics showing that the HPV vaccine has caused the following adverse reactions in the USA, up to 2013:
- Deaths: 140
- Disabled: 952
- Did not recover: 6,032
- Abnormal pap smear: 531
- Cervical dysplasia: 214
- Cervical cancer: 64
- Life-threatening: 562
- ER visit: 10,557
- Hospitalised: 3,065
- Extended hospital stay: 234
- Serious: 4,091
- Adverse events: 30,352
"The announcement is in stark contrast to the pronouncement last week by health officials in the United States that vaccination rates in teenage girls should be increased after a study concluded that estimated vaccine effectiveness is 'high'."
Japan did not suspend the vaccine, but it instructed local governments that it should not be promoted whilst the concern about adverse effects, such as long-term pain and numbness, were investigated.
The BBC article mentioned none of these concerns. It did not ask any organisation that has these concerns to comment. As will be seen, the only people they asked about the vaccine were people, and organisations that are part of the conventional medical establishment!
IS THE HPV VACCINE EFFECTIVE?
So if the BBC felt it was not sufficientlynimportant to inform us about safety concerns, did they say anything about the effectiveness of the vaccine? Again, the BBC article is unequivocal on this matter, entirely content to rely entirely on NHS statements about the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine.
"The NHS said the vaccine was 'effective at stopping girls from getting the types of HPV that cause most cervical cancers' but it was 'important to have both doses to be properly protected'."
"PHE statistics showed vaccination rates ranged from about two thirds of year nine girls in some parts of London to more than nine out of 10 in other areas, such as North Yorkshire, Tameside and Portsmouth. Cervical cancer remains the most common cancer in women under 35 and kills about 850 a year."
So should the BBC have raised questions the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine. This Child Health Safety article, again published as long ago as 2013 (the information has been around for a long time), outlines some of the scientific evidence that the HPV vaccine is not only dangerous, but also wrongly promoted as capable of preventing cancer. The evidence the produced questions the inadequacy of the testing regime, which has come under serious investigation, and found it to be seriously flawed. The research reveals that the
"... scientific and factual evidence that the data behind claims that HPV vaccines prevent cancers and save lives with no risk of serious side effects are 'optimistic' and contrary to the evidence and largely are from significant misinterpretation of available data which is 'presented to the public as factual evidence'."
None of this evidence is mentioned by the by the NHS in its new release, or the BBC in its article reporting on the issue. The assumptions made throughout the article are three-fold, that the vaccine is:
- Safe
- Effective
- Anyone not having the vaccine is risking contracting cervical cancer.
The conventional medical establishment DOES know this. This BMC article, "HPV vaccines and cancer prevention, science versus activism" says as much.
"The rationale behind current worldwide human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination programs starts from two basic premises, 1) that HPV vaccines will prevent cervical cancers and save lives and, 2) have no risk of serious side effects. Therefore, efforts should be made to get as many pre-adolescent girls vaccinated in order to decrease the burden of cervical cancer. Careful analysis of HPV vaccine pre- and post-licensure data shows however that both of these premises are at odds with factual evidence and are largely derived from significant misinterpretation of available data." (My emphasis).
Clearly this does not stop the conventional medical establishment, and its vested interests, from claiming that it is safe and effective, but it should encourage the BBC to investigate the claims being made for the vaccine. It totally fails to do so.
The BBC article goes on to relate a case example which supports and highlights the message - it is important for all young girls to have the HPV vaccine, and that there should be no concerns about its safety or effectiveness. It concerns a mother who had cervical cancer, and who has explained to her daughter how the vaccine could "save her life". She says it is "the best protection" for girls, that she is keen that her daughter receives the vaccine as she knows, from personal experience, "how potentially devastating cervical cancer can be". The mother goes on to explain that talking about the vaccine may be "difficult to address with children" as it was connected with "sexual activity", and that some mothers "don't want their daughters to have it because they say it encourages 'promiscuity' but that is "quite a naive approach to take with this vaccine."
There is nothing wrong with relating personal experiences, including a mother with a strong personal interest and opinion on the matter. But once again the BBC fails to offer any balance. Where are the stories of healthy young girls whose lives have been compromised by the HPV vaccine? There are plenty of them. I wrote this in a previous blog, "The HPV Vaccine. We need to protect our daughters from this."
"There are now, on the internet, hundreds of articles outlining the personal and family tragedy that this vaccine has caused, and continues to cause. It can be likened to a game of Russian Roulette. You may, or you may not be damaged. But dangerous drugs and vaccines should not be regarded as a statistical matter. They represent human and family tragedy, all of them hard to read about. But here are a selection of these tragedies, about people who lost the game, and taken from the internet.
- Mother links daughter's mystery illness to vaccine.
- Girl severely damaged by Gardasil recounts horrifying medical ordeal while doctors call her a liar
- Young woman tells of horrific, debilitating health issues she now faces in years following Gardasil vaccination
- HPV Vaccine destroys Australian child's ovaries - manufacturer didn't check!
- Gardasil changed our dreams to nightmares.
- US vaccine court pays $6 million to Gardasil victims, most claims not yet settled.
- Supreme Court Suit Filed over HPV Vaccine Tragedy in India.
- A school administrator is quoted saying that girls needed to know the vaccine would protect them in the future. Parents, she said, should not be "frightened" of a "safe vaccine" or having conversations about it with their children.
- The chief executive of Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust said there was "wide variation" across England, and although up-take was generally high, authorities should not become "complacent". He said that there were "cultural barriers and myths" about HPV and the vaccine that could contribute to areas having lower up-take rates. He said that concerns over the safety of the vaccine can have "a very damaging impact".
- NHS teams in Brent and Hammersmith and Fulham said that language barriers and religious reasons were among reasons for a lower up-take rate than in other parts of England.
- A spokesman for Central and North West NHS Foundation Trust said the areas had a large population of "non-white residents who have different cultural and religious beliefs" and there were "more refusals in these groups of parents".
- The clinical lead of childhood immunisations for North Yorkshire and York said that some concern was "normal" from parents, that her health teams asked for consent by post, using online forms and by speaking directly with girls eligible for the vaccine.
- The head of immunisations at PHE is quoted as saying that "Girls who missed either of their HPV vaccines should speak to their school nurse or GP and arrange to get the vaccine as soon as possible as they remain eligible until their 18th birthday."
So the BBC blames the social media for such views. The article refers to another one of its articles, Parents' vaccine side effects fear 'fuelled by social media', published in January 2019. This article is equally inaccurate, partial and unfair.
VACCINE UPTAKE, AND INFORMED PATIENT CHOICE
So has the reason for low uptake been missed? Could the real reason for low uptake be none of the things the BBC chose to mention? Could it not be that some people have become aware that vaccines (nor least the HPV vaccine) are not safe, or effective, and that scare stories (have the vaccine or risk cancer) no longer hold sway over their decision-making?
If the public had access to ALL the information about vaccines there would probably be many more people opting out of vaccination. If the BBC understood that informed patient choice was important - if they realised that their journalism was failing adequately to inform the public - that merely parroting the message of the conventional medicine is not good journalism - if the BBC offered its license payers more comprehensive, more accurate, more impartial, and fairer information on health issues more people would be able to make an informed choice, and there would undoubtedly be many more people refusing to accept vaccination.