“Physcical sciences” expert; David Robert Grimes, stops discussion when I point out side effects of HPV vaccine?

Yesterday March 4 was HPV awareness day, those viruses you often come into contact when you are not in a monogamous relationship. Most of us come in contact with this virus at some point in our lives and dont develop cervical cancer because there are other risk factors

• Smoking
• Having HIV or another condition that compromises the immune system.
• Using birth control pills for a long time.
• Having given birth to three or more children.
• Having several sexual partners.
• Uncircumcised penises

When assessing any medical intervention you weigh up the benefits against the risks. The benefits of the HPV vaccine to my 12 year old daughter right now are zero, the risks of adverse event are about 3% and in there is a small risk of death that is rarely mentioned.  Why? Because who in their right mind would but their 12 year old child at any risk. Should my young daughter become sexually active in the next 5 years time and ignores all the advice on risk factors of sexually transmitted diseases, she may come into contact with the HPV virus, by having sex with someone who has been exposed to it.

Nevertheless, the risk of developing cancer is still very small. As with all cancer the risk increases as we get older and the most effective way to prevent cervical or any cancer, is not to smoke, not to become obese, adopt a healthy active lifestyle and develop an effective immune system.

In the UK the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) provides a one off, tax-free, lump sum payment of £120,000 for those
who are severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against those diseases listed in the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979, out of 6,328 claims made, 940 people have been payed compensation, totalling £74,590,000 million.

I accept that business can have awarness days to advertise their products but they need to be objective especially when their are risks attached to these products and an acknowledgment that those manufacturing  the products will not be held liable for adverse events associated with the products (vaccines).

In the trials the HPV vaccine caused reactions in 2.7% of the subjects, which was similar to the placebo, therfore its considered safe to use. Turns out the placebo Merck used in the trial, did not contain inert substances, it contained the adjunct aluminum which is the adjunct in the HPV vaccine.

So when I saw a Guardian “science expert” Rober Grimes Tweeting about the benefits of the HPV vaccine, I would test him to see how much he knew and suggest an awareness day for side effects to vaccines, which cost the US government over 2 billions of dollars.

To be fair, there are many people in the Sense About Science community who would describe me as an irritating “quack”;  Grimes on the other hand, a PhD in Physics, was joint recipient of the 2014 Sense About Science / Nature Maddox Prize for standing up for science in the face of adversary, and was commended by Cancer Research UK for being  an excellent media ambassador for “Cancer Research UK”, for his efforts to dispel misconceptions in science and medicine.

My cancer story was unlikely to have pleased him, having stopped chemotherapy in 2013 after a terminal diagnosis, to try cannabis oil another pet hate of this “Physics Scientist”. My partner has a PhD in chemistry does not mean she knows fuck all about health and wellbeing.

So when I saw  a Tweet by David Robert Grimes; That he  was going to give a talk to some school boys about the HPV vaccine, I was interested. He stated the “HPV virus causes cancer of the penis and treatment could involve amputating the penis”; so these school boys would be well advised to have the HPV vaccine. I had no idea the HPV vaccine was being recommended for boys having decided not to give it to my girls in 2016 for the following reasons   Feeling a bit bored I thought I would give Davids chain a tug and see how he would react.

All my Twitter life, I have found the best strategy for debating with Righteous Science Evangelists is to ask questions I know the answer to. Give them enough rope and it always ends the same, when they realise there is more to the story, than what was in the “Press release” for the Vaccine, they had read.

These people never acknowledge any ignorance of the subject, regurgitating their mantra “The science is clear”; then they “block” me on Twitter and continue preaching. That is why I cant show David’s tweets in our thread. The irony is, I would have ignored his comments if he was not so arrogant.

I sent the following tweet to David 

He responded by saying its given to twelve year olds and “virtually no side effects” to which I responded 

He responded by saying none and suggested I read an article he had written for The Guardian in January 2016

“We know it’s effective. So why is there opposition to the HPV vaccine ?”

My response was polite  and to the point. I did my Masters dissertation on the “DTaP vaccine and Informed consent” in 2004 and knew that the Pharmaceutical industry gloss over side effects in UK when advising parents to vaccinate.  In the US a very litigious society they include the possibility of “serious damage” and “death”, in their consent forms called “Vaccination Information Statements”.

A twelve year old has zero risk of cervical cancer and a small risk of death. The decision is a no brainer. The vast majority of people will get exposed to HPV virus in their lifetime and not develop cancer because there are other risk factors. As David had said “no risk” I had him and he stopped the conversation. I sent the “hear no evil see no evil” monkey after he stated he did not want to discuss HPV anymore and blocked me 

If David had continued the conversation I would have told him about the work of Professor Chris Exley on the adjuvant Aluminium and how there are major questions regarding the placebo that the Gardisil vaccine was compared with. It also contained aluminum and as the placebo caused as many side effects as the vaccine it was licensed as safe to use. Below is what Professor Exley says about Gardasil;

It is approximately 10 years since we began our investigations into aluminium adjuvants and specifically their mode of action. We have reviewed the field in our new publication in Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology  and in particular in the light of what are known as serious adverse events immediately following vaccination.

What might be the cause of such events, ranging from health issues directly associated with the injection site to brain encephalopathy and death? Arguably, they are unrelated to the vaccine antigen, the reason for the vaccine, and aluminium adjuvants, unsurprisingly are recognised as prime suspects in initiating these events. I say, since there is no requirement to demonstrate that aluminium adjuvants are safe for human use. There is no approval mechanism. Only vaccines are approved for human use. There are two commonly used aluminium adjuvants, Alhydrogel® and AdjuPhos®, and a sulphated version of the latter, which is included in Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV). To my knowledge, to date Merck has not given permission for independent study of its proprietary adjuvant.

Merck’s own safety’trial data suggest a frequency of adverse events for the vaccine of approximately 2.5% and similarly 2.5% for their ‘placebo group’ who received their proprietary adjuvant. So, even though 25000/1,000,000 perfectly healthy recipients become ill on receiving Gardasil it is safe since the same number become ill on only receiving the adjuvant alone. In a very small true control group where the placebo was reported as saline, there were zero (none) adverse events. This raises some serious questions about adjuvants themselves.

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