Monday, March 10, 2008

Persistence of Contradicted Claims in the Literature

The problem can be that with any strongly held opinion, it is hard to change your mind. Human psychology is such that people look for facts that confirm pre existing beliefs and ignore those that contradict them. Medicine is no different and it is interesting how misinformation persists when it is contradicted by good data.

The JAMA published an article last month entitled “Persistence of Contradicted Claims in the Literature .”

JAMA. 2007 Dec 5;298(21):2517-26.
Persistence of contradicted claims in the literature.
Tatsioni A, Bonitsis NG, Ioannidis JP.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Gardasil Vaccine Part 2

Well, I'm in the thick of it now. With Google listing this blog, I feel the intensity of taking on the massive powers that be, in regards to a huge amount of money and power. Oh great. Just what I need, more stress.

While I discovered this deception all on my own, while searching for information about it, I discovered it isn't even news. For example, from Thursday, May 10, 2007 12:45 AM CDT

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/05/10/opinion/letters/126022.txt

According to published research, complication rates among Gardasil recipients were as high as 92 percent, similar to the control group receiving a neurotoxic aluminum adjuvant rather than saline. Fetal death was as high as 38 percent following vaccination, according to Merck.

The FDA has listed over 900 adverse Gardasil reactions including menstrual problems, seizures and syncope. Regarding efficacy, there are two Gardasil researchers who have spoken out against the premature conclusions of a ``cancer cure.''

It is not surprising that peer-reviewed literature has not raised greater concern about safety and effectiveness when over 40 percent of co-authors were Merck employees, including patent holders. According to Lancet (2005), Merck's Vioxx killed as many as 61,600 Americans, despite dozens of poorly designed, peer-reviewed papers touting its safety and enthusiastic approval by a conflicted FDA that routinely ignores long-term outcomes. My opinions are based upon peer-reviewed science and government documents.

Public health officials often readily accept the steady stream of disinformation and marketing propaganda from an FDA and CDC whose advisory board members, according to several congressional hearings, are frequently tied to pharmaceutical giants like Merck that have funded and created science aimed at delivering profits over safety.

Dr. David Ayoub
Oh well, it was news to me!

Looking at the information from the trials, there is one bright spot. Without meaning to, they did a double blind test on the aluminum salts used in the vaccine. Look at the charts!
from http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/g/gardasil/gardasil_pi.pdf


Side effects, listed by vaccine, "placebo", and saline injection. How interesting. More to come, more to come.

Gardasil Vaccine, Medical deception

This phrase, "The placebo consisted of the same adjuvant", only appears in two documents on the world wide web.

The placebo consisted of the same adjuvant

OK now it appears in three documents. This being the third one. I find that hard to believe, but you can do a search yourself with Google, Google Scholar, Google News, and Google blog search, and discover this for yourself.

(edit) Google already found this entry! It even lists it on the web search. (/edit)

It appears here, www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1525-1438.2007.01123.x
and here, broken link-> http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/IHUB_downtime02.htm

One is a broken link, the other wants 39 US dollars to read it. Considering the volume and page numbers have question marks, I think I will try an alternative method of finding the article.
www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1525-1438.2007.01123.x
International Journal of Gynecological Cancer
Vol. 0 Issue 0 Page ???

Safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine targeting human papillomavirus types 6, 11, 16 and 18: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial in 176 Korean subjects

S. KANG, K.H. KIM, Y.T. KIM, Y.T. KIM, J.H. KIM, Y.S. SONG, S.H. SHIN, H.S. RYU, J.W. HAN, J.H. KANG, S.Y. PARK

It doesn't really matter, the issue isn't with the article at all. It is with the entire methodology of how they "tested" the Gardasil vaccine. During the clinical trials, they didn't use a placebo, they used amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate as the placebo.

Here is the abstract for the trial.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17986242

We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 176 volunteers aged 9-23 years. Using a 2:1 ratio for randomization, 117 women were assigned to quadrivalent HPV (20 mug type 6, 40 mug type 11, 40 mug type 16, and 20 mug type 18) vaccine and 59 women to placebo. Individuals received vaccine at day 1, month 2, and month 6 and provided blood samples for analysis at enrollment at month 7. Analyses were done as specified in the study protocol. Quadrivalent HPV vaccine was generally well tolerated, with no vaccine-related serious adverse experiences. Quadrivalent HPV vaccine induced seroconversion for each vaccine-related HPV type. At month 7, vaccine-induced type-specific antibody titer was high. In conclusion, administration of quadrivalent HPV VLP vaccine to Korean women aged 9-23 years was generally well tolerated and highly immunogenic.

Note the bolded parts of the abstract. Just like all the other abstracts about Gardasil and clinical trials, they don't tell you the truth. They didn't use a Placebo, they used amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate dissolved in saline solution.

I am not making this up. So when they claim there were no adverse effects, they are comparing the vaccine to a big slug of aluminum injected into muscle tissue. Let me repeat that.

So when they claim there were no adverse effects, they are comparing the vaccine to a big slug of aluminum injected into muscle tissue.

You might think that is more than a bit deceptive. Because it is. In fact, it is a huge deception. It makes the entire clinical trial an example of bad science, bad medicine, and it is the opposite of Evidence Based Science.

How could the FDA approve that? How can anyone who is a scientist look at that and not see it?


This could be an entire series. This is unbelievable. As a scientific, rational person, I am deeply disturbed by this.

Which brings us back to that phrase,
"The placebo consisted of the same adjuvant". Redefining placebo isn't just against the rules, it is against the very basis of science, medicine and evidence based science.




Animals and earthquakes

Anecdotal evidence for thousands of years says some animals can detect earthquakes before they get bad.

Science is undecided.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Can you trust Wikipedia?

Not really. We do a fine job, but even the self referenced Wiki information tells you to not use Wiki as your only source, and to check the information.

Which is really good advice.