Spinning the Spin Part II: Marketing Scientific Research & Studies

June 28, 2011 - PRLog -- My father, once a pharmaceutical packaging salesman and now an Alzheimer’s nursing home patient whose mental clarity declined rapidly post- flu vaccination – once told me ‘never believe in everything that is advertised.’ Truer advice was never given. Perhaps that is when I started questioning the marketing on products about women’s health, always reading between the lines and doing my own research.

Over the last 30 years – marketing and advertising has taken hold of the world. Consumers are continually bombarded with sales pitches for everything from the latest and greatest technological toys to medications and vaccines.  Marketing campaigns for women’s health products are orchestrated with as much flare and fanfare as a formal event. ^1.  Gardasil was no exception.

In 2006, the HPV vaccine Gardasil was introduced to a public generally unaware of Human Papillomavirus or its supposed threat to adolescent girls and women.  However, the public was quickly informed of the ‘dangers’ of the virus when Merck Pharmaceutical Company launched an aggressive One Less Girl to get Cervical Cancer advertising campaign – with an awarding-winning jingle that had adolescent girls dancing in their living rooms – determined to become one less victim of cervical cancer.

According to Neon Tommy, the campaign was successful. Merck’s marketing techniques earned Gardasil a “pharmaceutical brand of the year” award from Pharmaceutical Executive for its ‘savvy disease education,’ and creating ‘a market out of thin air.” ^2.

OK – so as medical consumers we get the promotion of products….but when did scientific research sell out to marketing companies and the media?

How Women are Viewed by the Pharma/Medical Complex

In order to understand why this latest HPV vaccine uncontrolled medical experiment has been conducted on adolescent girls and now boy’s ages 9 to 26, it is important to recognize the social/political context of how women are perceived by the medical industry.

In their recently updated book, For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English expose the reasons for medical experiments on women.

“Since the nineteenth century, “experts” have been telling women how to take care of themselves. Generations of highly respected mainstream physicians have proclaimed most aspects of women’s lives an indication of weakness, from menstruation (illness requiring seclusion) to pregnancy (a disabling disease), to reading or intense conversation (a hazard to women’s health). Even domesticity, the prescription for a safe environment for women, became a domain for legions of “scientific” experts…. Yet experts continue to use pseudo-science to tell women how to live."

Ehrenreich and English write in the book’s introduction:

No matter how many degrees the experts dangle in front of you, no matter how many studies they cite, dig deeper, value your own real-life experiences, and think for yourself.^3.

So when Reuters and CNBC.com and other world press picked up the story out of Australia (Ian Frazer country) this past week:  Fewer girls develop cervical abnormalities after HPV vaccine ^4. The SANE Vax team immediately started investigating.

According to Julia Brotherton, an epidemiologist with the Victorian Cytology Service Registries and lead author of the paper; "This data ... shows a reduction in the number of very young woman with high grade cervical lesions diagnosed since the vaccine program started."

However, mid-way through the article, Associate Professor Karen Canfell, an epidemiologist with the Cancer Council of New South Wales commented that "The study looked at overall trends, and we cannot be absolutely certain that the drop in cervical abnormalities in the youngest age group was due to HPV vaccination."

Norma Erickson, president of SANE Vax, Inc. immediately found the flaw in the data used in the study and commented, “Both groups showed less than 1% cervical abnormalities – which is statistically accurate across the board.

How can anyone state a reduction from 0.8% to 0.42% is a significant reduction? Technically, I will admit it is almost a 50% reduction but in 1,000 girls – that would be a reduction from 8 with abnormal cells to 4 with abnormal cells….which pap smears would catch a whole lot cheaper than paying $300,000 to vaccinate the same thousand girls – not to mention they still need pap screening regardless of vaccination status.”

Diane Harper as well as many other researchers in the field – have stated that it will be at least 20 years before it is known whether or not the HPV vaccines will have impacted the worldwide cervical cancer rates.  

Professor Ian Frazer, Director of the Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine in Australia and creator of the HPV vaccine – stated in an Australian newspaper article titled God’s Gift to Women, “HPV vaccines should eventually eliminate a number of epithelial cancers and reduce the annual burden of cancer deaths globally by 5%–10%.” ^5.

It is truly unfortunate, that instead of utilizing an already proven, safe and effective means of reducing cervical cancer risk; the medical marketing ‘experts’ at Merck, the FDA, CDC, and NCI decided to ‘re-educate’ medical consumers and push a vaccine that has not been scientifically proven safe, affordable, necessary, or effective.  Perhaps, it is not medical consumers that need to be ‘re-educated’ -  Perhaps it is time for the medical ‘experts’ to learn - if medications/vaccinations are not Safe, Affordable, Necessary and Effective, medical consumers do not want them.

Sources:

1.   Susan Rako MD - http://www.susanrako.com/article5.htm

2.   Neon Tommy: http://www.neontommy.com/2010/01/gardasils-broadreaching-...

3.   For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women: http://www.isbnlib.com/preview/1400078008/For-Her-Own-Goo...

4.   Fewer girls develop cervical abnormalities after HPV vaccine:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/43433951

5.   God’s Gift to Women: The Human Papillomavirus http://holyhormones.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2010/07/HPV-Fraser-Imm-20061.pdf

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SaneVax believes only Safe, Affordable, Necessary & Effective vaccines and vaccination practices should be offered to the public. Our primary goal is to provide scientific information/resources for those concerned about vaccine safety, efficacy and need.