Green Options

I’m dying to write a light-hearted post, but I keep coming across new news on the potential risks involved with Gardisil, the teen vaccine intended to stave off cervical cancer, and the swine flu vaccine and I feel that I must continue to get the word out on vaccines. The more I read and listen, the more suspicious I am becoming that our national vaccination policy is a well-meaning government program that, like so many others, is caught up in nasty politics and big business.

As a side note, it is difficult to write about these matters without sounding alarmist. My goal here is to encourage parents to educate themselves about vaccines. Like any medical issue, citizens need to take responsibility for their own health. It is too easy to just do what the doctor says. See my last post about vaccinating baby for more resources that can help educate you about the potential hazards of vaccinations.

Both Gardasil and Menactra vaccines are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for grade school through college aged children, but according to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), Gardasil has been implicated in many more adverse reactions than Menactra, raising plenty of questions about its safety.

“Merck only studied the vaccine in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 and most of the serious health problems and deaths in the pre-licensure clinical trials were written off as a ‘coincidence.’ If the new Administration and Congress want to make government recommended health care safer, more effective and less expensive, a good place to start is by looking into the human and economic costs of Gardasil vaccine.” - Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC co-founder and president