The Story of Dr. SH Lee: Gardasil Whistleblower
My first go-round with post-secondary education at the age of 32 landed me at the local technical college in a two year diploma program in Biotechnology. It was, at that time, a blossoming field with endless possibilities in many areas of science. The science of genetic manipulation, in particular had interested me because I had seen in my minds eye, potential to solve many of the worlds problems. Recombining genes from different species of animals and plants could allow researchers to better understand the methods of gene expression and why certain diseases seem to occur in certain individuals, and not others. It was an exciting time!
After graduation, I worked for several companies on contract basis, doing work mostly with plants. In my last job, I was responsible for developing a protocol for inoculating parts of plant tissue with a bacteria that contained foreign DNA. The plants themselves came from somewhere in South America and were a staple food of the peoples there. These two plants, when altered to express the proteins we were working on, would later be used as edible vaccines. After a Jerry McGuire kind of breakdown, I realized what this work was actually going to accomplish, and I didn't like it one bit. Once patented, these two indigenous plants would no longer be free for the people to plant and grow as a food source and this would cause starvation and poverty. Not the idealistic picture I had painted for myself when I began my education.
Soon after, I began to look into the realm of science and grew increasingly disappointed. No more so, than in the area of pharmaceutical and vaccine development. As I looked deeper into the machinery that is disparagingly called BIG PHARMA, I realized that corporations that make drugs cause more harm than good. That is not to say that all drugs that pharmaceutical companies manufacture are bad for people (I have a few family members still around today because of them), but I do mean that the behaviors and business practices adopted by drug companies do harm people. This article from New Scientist is just one of many that illustrate my point:
Drug giant Merck accused of deaths cover-up
- 21:00 15 April 2008 by Jim Giles New Scientist
It is perhaps the biggest drug scandal of recent years. Before Merck withdrew Vioxx in 2004, the popular painkiller was linked to heart attacks in tens of thousands of people. Now researchers have alleged that Merck knew of the dangers years earlier, but tweaked statistics and hid data so that regulators remained in the dark.
Vioxx was a blockbuster drug for Merck in the 5 years it was on the market, generating billions of dollars in revenue. After it was linked to heart attacks and strokes, the firm pulled its product, and earlier this year Merck agreed to provide almost US$5 billion in compensation to those claiming to have been harmed.
But an analysis of documents released during the litigation process that led to that settlement, carried out by Richard Kronmal, a statistician at the University of Washington, Seattle, who acted as an expert witness in the Merck lawsuits, suggests that company scientists were aware of the problems well before 2004.
Read the full article here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13685-drug-giant-merck-accused-of-deaths-coverup.html
What prompts me to write this piece?
The recent letter I received from my daughters school that intimates that I am somehow a bad parent for not vaccinating them against Gardasil (and at least 6 other diseases).
(And the knowledge that this vaccine is somehow different).
HPV is, after-all, a virus that causes CANCER! Chicken pox, mumps and measels are one thing (btw, I had all of those childhood diseases and survived), but we are talking about a virus, that experts claim, causes the most prevalent and ever increasing disease of our time. What is also being missed here is that the same techniques that are used to produce other vaccines are thought to be equivalent to Gardasil(TM). The truth is that Gardasil(TM) is a recombinant vaccine, manufactured using technology that incorporates the viral DNA into a yeast cell's DNA so as to express the protein coat of the original virus. This protein is called a Virus-Like Protein (VLP) which is supposed to contain none of the original HPV DNA. Under the original FDA and PHAC approval statements and vaccine insert information, no mention is made of this DNA. However, on Oct 21, 2011 the FDA issued a statement saying that the DNA was expected to be in the final product as it was used to manufacture the vaccine. To date, the FDA and PHAC have refused to answer questions why this information remained unpublished for 5 years.
So, are critics of this vaccine simply hysterical (pun intended) conspiracy theorists?
The parents of vaccine injured and dead children don't think so and they ask others to walk a mile in their shoes. Here are the facts:
Since the Vioxx scandal, Merck has been in the news with allegations that the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine (Gardasil) is causing people to become very sick and even die.
Christina Tarsell:
Christina Tarsell, 21, died 18 days after recieving the last of three Gardasil shots. Her mother, Emily Tarsell, believes the vaccine against some strains of the human papilloma virus was responsible for her daughter's death. (courtesy of SaneVax.org)
Annabelle Morin:
Christina Tarsell, 21, died 18 days after recieving the last of three Gardasil shots. Her mother, Emily Tarsell, believes the vaccine against some strains of the human papilloma virus was responsible for her daughter's death. (courtesy of SaneVax.org)
Annabelle Morin: