HPVs, Vaccines, and Errroneous Claims

You make this claim:

The National Cancer Institute says, "Studies have shown that both Gardasil and Cervarix prevent nearly 100 percent of the precancerous cervical cell changes caused by the types of HPV targeted by the vaccine for up to 4 years after vaccination among women who were not infected at the time of vaccination."[31]

The vaccines target only two out of more than a dozen [see the list below] cancer causing HPV types; types 16 and 18. There are 14 HPV high risk types which are not covered, so cancers caused by those forms of HPV will still exist. PAP testing must be done anyway, and it is PAPs that will save lives, and have saved lives. So while your quote is true, it is not pertinent to the issue.

The issue here is two-fold. First, is reaction to the virus serious (and are they all known)? Second, is there really an epidemic of cervical cancer resulting in death due to not using this vaccine? Let's address the vaccine and its impact first.

From cdc.gov:

“…the proportion of female HPV reports classified as “serious ” (reports are classified as “serious” if they contain information that the event resulted in hospitalization, prolongation of an existing hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death) peaked in 2009 at 12.8% and decreased after that to 7.4% in 2013 (for more information, see Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): “Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Coverage Among Adolescent Girls, 2007-2012 and Postlicensure Vaccine Safety Monitoring, 2006-2013 — United States”

And this from Slade, et. al., quoted in nih.gov, referenced by cdc.gov:

Postlicensure safety surveillance for quadrivalent human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine.

”Abstract Conclusion: Most of the AEFI rates were not greater than the background rates compared with other vaccines, but there was disproportional reporting of syncope and venous thromboembolic events. The significance of these findings must be tempered with the limitations (possible underreporting) of a passive reporting system.”
[emphasis added]

Two conclusions here: First, that the safety limits for both syncope (passing out due to lack of blood flow to the brain) and venous thromboembolic events (blood clots in the veins) are outside the designated safety limits (and both of those are potentially deadly). Second, the reporting system is suspect, being a non-rigorous system which is highly dependent upon the manufacturer’s retransmission of reports of events, and the voluntary reporting of events out in the healthcare system.

From cdc.gov:

”High-risk types, including types 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 68, 69, 73, and 82, can cause low-grade cervical cell abnormalities, high-grade cervical cell abnormalities that are precursors to cancer, and anogenital cancers (5). High-risk HPV types are detected in 99% of cervical cancers (6); approximately 70% of cervical cancers worldwide are caused by types 16 and 18 (7). Although infection with high-risk types is considered necessary for the development of cervical cancer, it is not sufficient because the majority of women with high-risk HPV infection do not develop cancer (3,4).
[emphasis added]

And,

”HPV Infection
Condom use might reduce the risk for HPV and HPV-associated diseases (e.g., genital warts and cervical cancer). A limited number of prospective studies have demonstrated a protective effect of condoms on acquisition of genital HPV. A study among newly sexually active college women demonstrated a 70% reduction in HPV infection when their partners used condoms consistently and correctly (98). Abstaining from sexual activity (i.e., refraining from any genital contact with another persons) is the surest way to prevent genital HPV infection. For those who choose to be sexually active, a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner is the strategy most likely to prevent future genital HPV infections.”
[emphasis added]

And,

The maximum cervical cancer death rate, identified at that maximum in four states only, is 40 ppm (0.00004 or 0.004%). Average is probably 20 ppm (0.00002 or 0.002%).

Given that only 70% of cancers will be addressed by this vaccine, then the average is 14 ppm (0.000014 or 0.0014%) who will be positively affected by having been vaccinated prior to infection. Of these, 93% can be caught and treated successfully by early PAP testing. The death rate, contrary to assertions made, is quite small, definitely not the 80% implied erroneously.

The actual death rate from the vaccine itself is not really known, if the passive reporting system is truly questionable, per Slade, et. al.; again, however, according to their study the potentially fatal syncope and venous thromboembolic events are outside acceptable limits:

“Conclusion: Most of the AEFI rates were not greater than the background rates compared with other vaccines, but there was disproportional reporting of syncope and venous thromboembolic events. The significance of these findings must be tempered with the limitations (possible underreporting) of a passive reporting system.”
[emphasis added]

Now let’s address behavioral issues:

“Editorial Note
Although HPV vaccination coverage has lagged behind that of other vaccines recommended for adolescents (3), coverage among adolescent girls increased each year during 2007–2011; 2012 is the first year with no observed increase. In 2012, only 53.8% of girls had received ≥1 dose of HPV vaccine, and only 33.4% had received all 3 doses of the series. Despite the availability of safe and effective HPV vaccines, approximately one quarter of surveyed parents did not intend to vaccinate their daughters in the next 12 months. Missed vaccination opportunities remain high. Every health-care visit, whether for back-to-school evaluations or acute problems, should be used to assess teenagers' immunization status and provide recommended vaccines if indicated.”
[some emphasis added]

Encouraging and accommodating unsafe behavior results in more than just sexual adventurism; it results in personal negligence as an embedded behavior pattern. If reasonable sexual behavior cannot be a cultural staple, neither will be salvation by injection. The failure to accept the CDC’s own position that abstinence/monogamy is the only sure prevention of cervical cancer is the real problem; it is purely a political amorality issue.

The accusation that promoting responsible sexual behavior is this:

” effectively advocating is a death sentence for promiscuous behavior. ("About eight in every ten women who have been sexually active will have H.P.V. at some stage of their life. ") This seems reasonable, from your perch of absolute morality? 8/10 women? Fuck them right. Sluts. No pun intended.”

This statement is both intentionally morally directed from a position of smug self-righteous indignation that responsible sexual behavior should even be suggested (as it is in the CDC literature), much less promoted; Further, it is totally false, an egregious misrepresentation of the seriousness of the epidemiology of the HPV STD disease : most cases – the huge majority – never develop symptoms, and disappear on their own. As I have shown using the CDC figures, 0.0014% will die of their sexually transmitted disease, even though that disease is the most common STD at this time. Further it is apparent that proper testing could prevent many of those deaths. The use of 8 out of 10 as a criterion for condemnation is many orders of magnitude in error; it is false by 100,000 :1.

So the accusation is both factually and morally wrong, and represents merely a cheap insult at a juvenile level.

From the American Cancer Society:

”Cervical cancer can often be found early, and sometimes even prevented entirely, by having regular Pap tests. If detected early, cervical cancer is one of the most successfully treatable cancers.”
[emphasis added]

Caught early, there is a 93% recovery rate (5 year) per the ACS.

Caught late in the progress of the cancer, the rates decrease accordingly, with stage IVB being merely 15%.

Could the death rate as it stands at 0.0014% be reduced to 0.00001% by encouraging more PAP testing by women? Probably. But again that reflects behavioral changes in a society which is not so inclined toward responsible behavior. Not even to avoid STDs, nor to get vaccinated. Accommodating irresponsibility merely leads to more irresponsibility. Even so, the HPV STD epidemic is not a lifethreatening epidemic of outrageous proportions.

The comparison of this vaccine to other vaccines for non-behavior acquired diseases is absurd.

”I did not promote either monogamy nor abstinence…”

Of course you didn’t promote those behaviors, they are responsible sexual behaviors which are now lost to several generations.

”but that the presence of the vaccine would not promote more promiscuous behavior.”

It is impossible to promote more promiscuity than is already promoted daily in this culture; it is the necessity for accommodation of that culture of irresponsibility and amorality which is your advocacy. And the accommodation of a set of behaviors is indicative of benign acceptance (passive approval), and if that does not promote the behaviors, it at a minimum does nothing to discourage them, thereby sharing culpability for their existence.

Next. Your presumption that I am anti-vaccine is completely erroneous and a Jump to Conclusion Fallacy, intended to insult and condemn by association, falsely. I get tetanus vaccinations regularly; I got a flu vaccination last Fall; I will be getting a shingles vaccination this week – I’ve had to hold off due to antibiotics I needed for something else. If bird flu gets serious enough, I will get a vaccination for that, too; we have chickens. I got all my shots as a child, and I’m grateful for them. But those are diseases of existing in a population of humans who transmit accidentally and not by irresponsible lifestyle choice.

The hue and cry to vaccinate every eligible female will definitely bring a huge cash flow to Merck, at $300/each every four years for all females between 9 and 26 years old in the USA and around the world. Are you somehow in big pharma’s employ? Or is it purely an ideology attachment which must be satisfied? Does your affection for science include doing the math required to check out the claims? Or do you just accept what they say when it is congenial to your ideology?

Finally, your moral pretensions are onerous in light of your lack of knowledge concerning the subject of which you pretend to be an expert defender. As for sluts in my family, your cheap insults confirm my observation that you have no real argument to provide; after misrepresenting data, you consider insults to be intellect, and that is a standard defect of the AtheoLeft, the inability to argue either logically and civilly. It is because their arguments fail in the light of day, every time.

The massive documented errors of your scientistic “arguments” and the cheap, juvenile slander of your tactic render you useless for discussions of any intellectual value.