Athlete Confined To Wheelchair After Her Third Gardasil Vaccine Takes Merck To Court
In Brief
- The Facts:This article was written by Lyn Redwood, R.N, M.S.N., President of Children’s Health
Defense. Posted here with permission. - Reflect On:Why is this type of information virtually ignored by mainstream media and medicine? What's going on here? Why is gardasil marketed as completely safe and necessary when clearly, that doesn't seem to be the case?
On
Wednesday January 9th, I attended Science Day Presentations in the
Jennifer Robi vs. Merck and Kaiser Permanente case in Los Angeles
Superior Court. I want to report to our community on the outcome of this
important event and provide some personal commentary.
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It is difficult to describe the feelings
of elation and frustration that I experienced during the full day of
furious arguments that began at 9:30 am before Judge Maren Nelson. Due
to the restrictions of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, my son
and thousands of children like him, have never been able to have their
injuries acknowledged in a court of law. This day gave families around
the globe whose children’s health was permanently harmed by the HPV
vaccine a glimmer of hope that their injuries and suffering would
finally be acknowledged. The frustration I felt came from the obvious
fact that the science relied on by our federal agencies to approve the
HPV vaccine was criminally inadequate and that Jennifer’s injuries and
those of the thousands of others like her could have been prevented.
Prior to Science Day, plaintiffs’
attorneys worried that because Judge Nelson threw out a $472 million
2017 jury verdict against Johnson & Johnson for causing ovarian
cancer in women exposed to its asbestos-containing baby powders, the
Court might not be very receptive to their arguments here. However,
Judge Nelson gave scrupulous attention to the science presentations by
both sides and clearly seemed to be approaching the Robi case with an
open mind.
A red-letter day
After 20 years of advocating for vaccine
safety, this was the first time that I’ve watched vaccine science
issues adjudicated in a true court of law. It was truly a red-letter
day. Jennifer’s lawyers brilliantly laid bare Merck’s anemic case for
Gardasil, dissecting the science in withering presentations challenging
both the efficacy and safety of the Gardasil vaccine, and then
chronicling the horrifying agency and corporate corruption that lead to
its approval.
Jennifer Robi is a 24-year-old former
athlete and scholar who has been confined to a wheelchair since
receiving her third Gardasil vaccines at age sixteen. She suffers
continual uncontrolled neuro/muscular contractions (jerking) and
postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and many other symptoms
of systemic autoimmune dysregulation.
Jennifer’s attorney, Sol Ajalat,
initially brought her case in Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and
then, following a judgment in the program, elected to proceed in civil
court. Since VICA (the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act) forbids
recoveries for product defect or negligence, Ajalat brought Jennifer’s
civil case under the theories that Merck committed fraud during its
clinical trials and then failed to warn Jennifer (and, by implication,
other injured girls) about the high risks and meager benefits of the
vaccine.
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In order to support Sol Ajalat and his
sons Greg, Larry, and Steve, who compose the Los Angeles firm Ajalat
& Ajalat, a blue ribbon A-Team of the nation’s leading plaintiffs’
law firms have joined Jennifer’s trial team. These include the firms
most feared by Pharma: Weitz & Luxenberg (countless major pieces of
litigation over 30 years), Morgan & Morgan (Vioxx, Phenphen, Breast
Implants, Tobacco), Baum Hedlund, (Monsanto $289 million verdict 2018
and the $54 million 2000 verdict against Bayer in Haemophiliac/AIDS
case) as well as Children’s Health Defense’s own Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
and Kim Mack Rosenberg (a co-author of The HPV Vaccine on Trial).
The plaintiff’s bar has steered clear of vaccine lawsuits since the
2008 Thimerosal fiasco which nearly bankrupted several big firms. Now,
Merck, through its reckless overreaching with Gardasil—a public health
flimflam currently emerging as the most dangerous vaccine in history—has
brought the nation’s leading trial lawyers back to the brawl.
The three Merck attorneys who made
presentations were Dino Sangiamo, Sally Bryan, and Christina Gaarder. Jo
Lyn Valoff represented Kaiser.
Among vaccinologists, it’s axiomatic that duration of immunity correlates directly to the toxicity of the adjuvant: the more toxic the adjuvant, the longer the duration of immunity.
Gardasil’s super-powered aluminum adjuvant
Plaintiffs began the day with a 2.5 hour
presentation. Sol Ajalat first introduced Paul Pennock of Weitz &
Luxenberg. Pennock ran through a riveting 50-minute slide show
demonstrating how Gardasil’s super-powered Amorphous Aluminum
Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS) adjuvant over-stimulated the immune
systems of vaccine recipients tipping them into autoimmune conditions in
which their redlining immune defenses begin attacking their bodies’ own
organs. This “autoimmune process” causes a cascade of illnesses that,
in Jennifer Robi’s case, resulted in damage and deterioration in diverse
organ systems throughout her body.
Victims like Jennifer are left exhausted
as the body fights off disease on multiple fronts. Pennock explained
that vaccine makers add aluminum adjuvants (to weak antigens and a long
list of other potentially toxic ingredients) to elicit an immune
response, hoping to extend the short-term immunity otherwise provided by
most vaccines. Among vaccinologists, it’s axiomatic that the duration
of immunity correlates directly to the toxicity of the adjuvant; the
more toxic the adjuvant, the longer the duration of immunity. Most
vaccines provide immunity for only 5-10 years. Gardasil’s promoters were
promising lifelong protection, and needed a super toxic adjuvant that
would provide this unprecedented level of protection. After all, Merck
was promising regulators, pediatricians and the public that inoculations
given to 9-12-year-old girls would provide immunity against a
relatively rare cancer that typically doesn’t kill until age 58!
Pennock explained that Merck has refused
to disclose the contents of AAHS or to provide samples to independent
and university scientists for testing. AAHS, astonishingly, has never
been safety tested by government regulators or by Merck. Studies on
animals conducted by world renowned independent scientists like Dr.
Chris Exley, Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, Dr. Chris Shaw and others have found
that mice and sheep exposed to aluminum adjuvants, at concentrations
comparable to those found in vaccines, develop strange behavioral
patterns and illnesses resembling autoimmune diseases.
Using a poisonous placebo in the control group allowed Merck to mask the cascade of injuries suffered by girls in the Gardasil group during the clinical trials.
A parade of deceptive canards
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. next gave the
court an explosive 50-minute presentation of 112 disturbing slides
describing the parade of deceptive canards that composed Merck’s
clinical trials. Kennedy described a series of fraudulent gimmicks
employed by Merck to deceive regulators during the clinical trials
including the use of a “spiked” extremely toxic AAHS placebo rather than
a true inert placebo that is standard for control groups in blue ribbon
safety studies for other pharmaceutical products. Using a poisonous
placebo in the control group allowed Merck to mask the cascade of
injuries suffered by girls in the Gardasil group during the clinical
trials. Half the girls in the Gardasil group and half the girls in the
spiked placebo group suffered serious injuries, including several
deaths, in the first seven months of the clinical trials, yet Merck was
able to claim that reactions in the study group “were similar to the
reactions in the placebo group,” and that, therefore, the vaccine was
safe. Merck reported most of these serious injuries as “new medical
conditions” not adverse events, dismissing any connection to the vaccine
by fiat. Information about this parade of grave injuries appears
nowhere in the Gardasil package insert.
Merck committed its boldest fraud in its
key clinical trial, Protocol 18. Merck told FDA that Protocol 18 was
the single study in which its researchers gave the control group a true
inert placebo. For this reason, FDA declared Protocol 18 “of special
interest.” However, in reality, Merck appears to have taken the
precaution of removing half the aluminum from the vaccines administered
to this study group. Plus, The Company laced the “placebo” with a
witches’ brew of other toxic chemicals. This study, the only
“controlled” study that included children in the target cohort of
9-12-year olds, may not have in fact tested the vaccine that Merck went
on to inject into millions of young children around the world. Kennedy
told the judge that this is not just scientific malpractice, it is
outright fraud!
Merck’s control groups did not reflect the target population for its drug
Another tactic utilized by Merck was to
purge the study group of anyone with the slightest vulnerabilities to
the vaccine or its ingredients despite the fact that the vaccine would
ultimately be marketed to girls with the very vulnerabilities excluded
during the clinical trials. This precaution allowed the company to mask
effects that occur only in vulnerable subgroups. Mr. Kennedy drew
laughter from the large court room audience when he described how Merck
had prescreened the study subjects to exclude people with allergies,
immunological or nervous disorders, more than 4 lifetime sexual
partners, genetic vulnerabilities to cancer or to any other medical
condition, or with any hint of general infection, a history of alcohol
or drug abuse, or a serious or chronic illnesses, and so forth. Finally,
Merck told its researchers to exclude any individual with “any
condition which in the opinion of the researchers might interfere with
the study objective.” The remaining participants were an elite club of
super healthy individuals. “You couldn’t get into the clinical trials
unless you were a superhero,” Kennedy told Judge Nelson. “You had to be
eligible for the Avengers.” The problem, of course, is that none of the
people receiving the vaccine under CDC’s mandate are screened for these
vulnerabilities. In other words, Merck’s control groups did not reflect
the target population for its drug.
The mayhem caused by Gardasil
Even these flimflams could not conceal
the mayhem caused by Gardasil. Kennedy showed the court data from
Merck’s own package insert showing that 2.3 % of the girls receiving the
vaccine complained of symptoms of autoimmune disease within 7 months.
Since cervical cancer kills only 1.5 Americans in every 100,000, he
noted, “Merck’s own data show that the chances of getting an autoimmune
disease from this vaccine are 1000 times the risk of dying from cervical
cancer.”
Merck’s own data showed that administering the Gardasil vaccine to girls who had previous exposure to HPV actually raised their risk of developing precancerous lesions (or worse) by almost 45%
Not only did a heartbreaking 50% of the
subjects in both the study group and the spiked placebo group experience
a serious adverse event within the seven months of the trial, death
rates among girls in the study were double background rates. In fact,
the rate for girls during the clinical trials (85/100,000) was 37 times
the death rate from cervical cancer! Birth defects among children
conceived during the study period were 5x those of the control group and
miscarriages were doubled over background rates. Reproductive problems
among vaccinated girls were 10x background rates. Finally, Merck’s own
data showed that administering the Gardasil vaccine to girls who had
previous exposure to HPV actually raised their risk of developing
precancerous lesions (or worse) by almost 45%. This revelation is
particularly frightening since sexual behavior is only one of many
vectors for acquiring HPV. Many children are exposed in the birth canal.
Kennedy cited numerous studies showing many very young children are
exposed to HPV, including one in which upwards of 34% of girls had
exposure to HPV prior to age 10.
Kennedy closed his powerful presentation
by chronicling the parade of corrupt conflicts that caused HHS
officials to turn a blind eye to the rife fraud that characterized the
clinical trials. Merck loaded the two FDA and CDC panels that approved
Gardasil, with paid toadies. He showed that the pharmaceutical industry
actually pays 45% of FDA’s annual budget and that NIH and its officials
own part of the patents to the Gardasil vaccine and collect royalties on
every vaccine sold. NIH collects tens of millions of dollars annually
from Gardasil sales. Finally, 45% of CDC’s budget goes to promoting and
purchasing vaccines. Merck exerts control over the CDC with millions
of dollars in contributions to the CDC foundation, which allows funding
for pet projects. This level of support gives Merck the power to also
punish the CDC by withholding funding if displeased by the agency.
Jennifer’s illness due to Gardasil
Nicole Maldonado of Baum Hedlund next
described the onset of Jennifer’s illness which worsened with each stage
of the three vaccine series and how her symptoms were identical to the
symptoms seen among hundreds of injured women during the clinical trials
around the world, in places as diverse as Japan, Australia, Colombia,
and Denmark (where special clinics have been set up to treat Gardasil’s
victims), as well as among many girls here in the United States. These
symptoms included menstrual irregularities, gastrointestinal
dysfunction, musculoskeletal pain, neurological conditions and even
death.
One courtroom observer, a concerned
mother identifying herself as Rachel Harris said she felt sick to her
stomach at the revelations. Jennifer Robi’s mom told me that she felt
elated that Mr. Kennedy had mastered the facts so completely and that
their family’s story was finally being told.
Merck’s AAHS adjuvant was safe because of the small quantities of this known neurotoxin in each vaccine. She told the judge that ‘the dose makes the poison,’ and that even water in large enough doses can be toxic
The rebuttal
The Defendants’ three-hour rebuttal was
mainly toothless. Sangiamo doggedly described six studies, that he
claimed were relied upon by the plaintiff, that had been retracted.
However, only one of those studies was even mentioned on the plaintiff’s
lengthy exhibit list (Plaintiff’s attorneys never referred to it in
their briefs) and that study was republished elsewhere after the
original journal retracted it under pressure from its pharmaceutical
advertisers.
Sangiamo argued that the plaintiff had
relied on case studies rather than large scale epidemiological studies
of the kind largely funded by industry or the NIH which owns the
Gardasil patent and profits on every injection sold. He cited five of
those NIH and industry-authored epidemiological studies that found no
causal relationship between Gardasil and autoimmune diseases. All are
plagued by fatal defects such as only looking for a very limited number
of potential injuries for a short period of time following exposure to
the vaccine, despite the fact that autoimmune diseases can take months
or years to manifest. The authors of these studies had financial ties
to Merck.
Finally, Merck’s Sally Bryan rose to the
podium to explain to Judge Nelson that Merck’s AAHS adjuvant was safe
because of the small quantities of this known neurotoxin in each
vaccine. She told the judge that “the dose makes the poison,” and that
even water in large enough doses can be toxic. She pointed out that
there are only 225 micrograms of aluminum in each vaccine. To illustrate
how small this is, she asked Judge Nelson to imagine a dollar bill –
which weighs one gram – cut into 1 million tiny pieces. She pointed out
that only 225 of these pieces would be in any Gardasil vaccine, far too
little to cause any adverse outcome. So in one breath, Merck was telling
Judge Nelson that the amount of aluminum in Gardasil was substantial
enough to permanently alter a person’s immune system to prevent cancer
for the next half century and, at the same time, small enough to cause
no harm.
The path forward
At the end of a long day, Judge Nelson
ordered both sides to work out a discovery schedule and to reappear in
court on February 7 to resolve any differences.
In Merck’s zealous promotion of the
Gardasil vaccine, the company and its allies have shamed parents into
vaccinating their children, through a series of misleading ad campaigns
which play on parental instincts to protect their children from harm,
especially from a disease as frightening as cancer. One commercial
depicts young girl and boy actors recounting how they developed cancer
from HPV and asking their parents if they knew this could have been
prevented. “Did you know – Mom and Dad?” Jennifer Robi has had the
courage to tell a real-life story that the public rarely hears – about
the risks of the Gardasil vaccine itself.
Watch RFK, Jr. describe his plan to take this issue to the courts
RFK, Jr. (from the video): “We’re going to fight this battle for you. We’re going to take it to the streets. We’re going to take it to Congress. We’re going to take it to the regulatory agencies. We’re going to force the press to start covering this issue honestly for the first time, and allowing this debate to take place. And above all, we’re going to take it to the court room, and we’re going to win these cases. We’re going to find justice for you, for your families and for our country at last. If we’re going to do this effectively, we need your support.” www.childrenshealthdefense.org/donateSign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. CHD is planning many strategies, including legal, in an effort to defend the health of our children and obtain justice for those already injured. Your support is essential to CHD’s successful mission.
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