HIV/AIDS Rises Among Girls and Women
March 12, 2010
Top News
By Jason Ramsey
Women are encouraged to get tested for HIV/AIDS regularly —every six months — and participate in National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD).
NWGHAAD is celebrated with an aim to raise awareness of the rising effect of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.
Launched by the Office on Women’s Health (OWH), on March 10 of every year, organizations across the country extends support discuss and educate women and girls about prevention, the need for regular testing, and the way to lead a normal, healthy life instead of being infected in recognition of NWGHAAD.
The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services claims that a woman in the United States gets tested positive for HIV every 35 minutes and nearly 25% Americans surviving with HIV are women.
Also, less than 15 percent of new HIV infections in the U. S. were among females 13 and older in the mid 1980s, which boosted to about 27 percent by 2006.
The Global Fund is reported to meet in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 24 with a view to examine how it can fulfill its goals eradicating or reducing instances of the three diseases by 2015.
It estimates that between $13-20 billion are needed for the period 2011-2013.
Click here for the full report
16 Year-Old Loses Eyesight After HPV Vaccination
March 1, 2010
The One Click Group
By Francis J. DiMario, Jr, Mirna Hajjar and Thomas Ciesielski
We report the course of a 16-year-old girl who presented with near complete visual loss associated with chiasmal neuritis and a biopsy proven tumefactive demyelinating lesion on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in association with a recent immunization against human papilloma virus.
She had received her second vaccination against human papilloma virus 10 days prior to her presentation. There was no family history of demyelinating disease, collagen-vascular disease, or rheumatological disorders.
In the context of prior vaccination in a 16-year-old girl, acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis is likely to explain the multifocal deficits.
Larger epidemiologic studies will be needed to confirm a role of the human papilloma virus immunization and demyelinating disease.
Click here for the full report
Smokers More Likely To Give Kids HPV Shot
February 8, 2010
WLKY.com
Parents who smoke or who used to smoke are more likely to let their daughters get the vaccine meant to prevent HPV infections that can lead to cervical cancer, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia said that those more likely to accept the series of shots were also more likely to get exercise than the general population.
They also were more likely to believe that cancer can be cured if caught early.
Researcher Carolyn Fang said that vaccine use is usually lower among people who do things that could be considered unhealthy, such as smoking and drinking. She suggested that smokers may be more aware of cancer risks in general, and thus more likely to be in favor of the vaccine.
A news release on the study said that only 37 percent of girls ages 13 to 17 years have received at least one shot in the three-shot vaccine series.
A study of about 1,300 parents of teen girls found that about 18 percent would not have their daughters get the shots. One-quarter were undecided and more than half said they would let their daughter take the vaccine.
Researchers also noted that just because parents say they would accept the vaccine does not necessarily mean the girls will get it.
Results of the survey were published in the February issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
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Experts Say 40% of Cancers Can Be Avoided
February 5, 2010
Reuters
A report by the Geneva-based International Union Against Cancer (UICC) highlighted nine infections that can lead to cancer and urged health officials to drive home the importance of vaccines and lifestyle changes in fighting the disease.
“If there was an announcement that somebody had discovered a cure for 40 percent of the world’s cancers, there would quite justifiably be huge jubilation,” UICC president David Hill told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“But the fact is that we have, now, the knowledge to prevent 40 percent of cancers. The tragedy is, we’re not using it.”
Cervical and liver cancer, both caused by infections which can be prevented with vaccines, should be top priorities, the report said, not only in rich nations, but also in developing countries where 80 percent of global cervical cancer occur.
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and the total number of cases globally is increasing, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The number of global cancer deaths is projected to rise by 45 percent from 2007 to 2030 from 7.9 million to 11.5 million deaths, driven partly by a growing and aging global population.
The UICC said it wanted to focus policymakers’ attention on cancer-preventing vaccines — like ones made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co against the human papillomavirus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer, and others against hepatitis B, which causes liver disease and cancer.
“Policymakers around the world have the opportunity and obligation to use these vaccines to save people’s lives and educate their communities toward lifestyle choices and control measures that reduce their risk of cancer,” Cary Adams, UICC’s chief executive, said in a commentary on the report.
Other cancer-causing infections include hepatitis C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Epstein Barr, a herpes-type virus transmitted by saliva.
The experts said the risk of developing cancer could potentially be reduced by up to 40 percent if full immunization and prevention measures were deployed and combined with simple lifestyle changes like quitting smoking, eating healthily, limiting alcohol intake and reducing sun exposure.
Hill said national health authorities should also work to dispel widespread myths about cancer, in particular a sense of fatalism felt by many people in the face of the disease.
As part of this, the UICC is launching a campaign called “Cancer can be prevented too” on World Cancer Day on February 4 to encourage people to face up to the fact that smoking, poor diet and some infections carry high cancer risks.
European cancer experts issued a report last year warning that a wave of cancer now threatens developing countries, estimating that around half of the 12.4 million new cases in 2008 occurred in low and middle income countries.
Despite the availability of so much scientific knowledge about the disease’s causes, Hill said there was great concern among health experts that “the opportunity to prevent this huge escalation of cancer may be missed.”
Click here for the full report
Simple Test Could Cut Cancer Deaths in Poor Regions
January 15, 2010
Reuters
By Kate Kelland
Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in developing nations where the main barriers to tackling the disease are poor health service infrastructure and high costs of screening and vaccines.
But British researchers said visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) — which costs significantly less than $9 human papillomavirus (HPV) or cervical cell lab tests more commonly used in developed nations — could be the answer.
Around 300,000 women worldwide die from cervical cancer each year and up to 85 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries.
“VIA is an effective and affordable tool to screen women for pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix in under-resourced countries,” said David McGregor of University College London, who led the research.
“Coupled with simple treatment measures, VIA could potentially reduce these cancer deaths by a third, which means nearly 100,000 women saved each year.”
VIA is a simple test where a very small dose of acetate acid solution is applied to the cervix to detect pre-cancerous lesions. A positive result can be treated immediately.
This is referred to as the “see and treat” approach and experts say it can work well in small clinics without advanced equipment and laboratories.
Drug firms Merck & Co and GlaxoSmithKline make Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines which protect against a number of strains of HPV — the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world and the main cause of cervical cancer.
But unlike in developed nations, where cervical screening programs are well established and vaccination programs against HPV are growing, access to tests and vaccines in many countries in Africa, Asia and southern America is limited.
The study in the Obstetrician & Gynecologist journal said research in rural and isolated communities had shown that VIA is accurate, acceptable to women, and cuts cancer death rates.
But it said raising awareness about screening programs to ensure higher uptake in the population was also a challenge.
Click here for the full report
Annual Pap Smears Thing of the Past?
November 20, 2009
ABC News
By Lauren Cox and Dr. Joshua Hundert
Pap smears may no longer be called “annuals” if doctors follow new cervical cancer screening recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The group announced today that women should start getting cervical cancer screenings at age 21 instead of 18, and that women could wait longer between the screenings — regardless of when a woman starts having sex.
Women in their 20s with normal Pap smear results now should get screenings every two years instead of every year, and women in their 30s can wait three years between screenings, according to the new ACOG guidelines.
After a week of uproar over the controversial recommendations for less mammogram screenings for women, doctors say they will have to wait and see how the public reacts to the new pap smear guidelines.
“This is not a radical change in screening practices. This is something that’s been coming gradually since the 1980s,” said Dr. Alan G. Waxman, who helped write the new guidelines.
Some doctors hailed the decision as a way to reduce a host of problems caused by excessive screening; yet, a few others worried it might trigger more women to neglect annual checkups with gynecologists.
Waxman said the move toward fewer screenings will reduce unnecessary treatment in young women and protect them from future pregnancy complications.
On one hand, college-aged women have very high HPV infection rates. Dr. John Curtin, of The Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City said 70 percent of all college-aged sexually active people have contracted HPV. These high infection rates translate into a high number of abnormal pap smears.
Anxiety Vaccine? What Next?!
October 23, 2009
Natural News
By Mike Adams
There’s a new vaccine for nicotine addiction, and another one for drug addiction. There’s an AIDS vaccines (which doesn’t work) and a vaccine for cervical cancer that’s been approved for use on boys (boys don’t have a cervix). Through the pharmaceutical industry, the big push for vaccines is on!
But why, exactly? Is there suddenly a new rash of epidemic disease requiring vaccine treatments? No, not really. What’s new is the way Big Pharma is latching on to these diseases as new opportunities to sell more drugs.
There’s a huge shift underway from drugs designed for sick people to a whole new class of drugs manufactured for healthy people. The new paradigm is that people need drugs before they get sick, as a sort of “protection” against sickness. Drugs, in essence, are being positioned as nutrients — things the human body needs in order to be healthy. And from the moment you’re born, you’re considered deficient in these drugs. That’s why babies are injected with vaccines within minutes after being born. There’s a strong belief in the medical industry that babies are born deficient in vaccines and that such deficiencies must be “corrected” as soon as possible.
This simple but powerful shift in the marketing strategy of Big Pharma has expanded the potential customer based from a subset of the population (people who are sick) to the entire world population. Now, everybody needs a vaccine for something say the drug companies. All that’s necessary for the financial success of these scheme is to convince sick people that they need more drugs (or vaccines), and that’s easily accomplished through disease mongering campaigns (like the current fear push over H1N1 swine flu).
Bypassing the need for scientific evidence
There’s another important shift taking place alongside the big vaccine push: A shift away from “evidence-based medicine” to a new medical paradigm of “dogmatic belief.”
Medicines that treat sick people, you see, have to be proven to work. There have to be clinical trials, and some percentage of those sick people (only 5% or so, typically) have to show some sort of improved response after taking the medicine. This is the so-called “gold standard” of modern medicine. But with vaccines, no proof of efficacy is required. No placebo-controlled studies need to be conducted at all. Vaccines can be openly marketed and prescribed without any evidence that they actually work.
This is the new “free pass” for Big Pharma — a class of medicine that requires no proof! They merely need to be injected into a few hundred people who are observed for as little as two weeks to see if anybody died or collapses into a coma. That’s all the testing that’s required (and sometimes even less). No long-term safety tests are required or pursued, and, importantly, there is no requirement that the vaccine proves it actually works to reduce flu infections (or HPV infections, etc.).
In essence, by pushing for a vaccine approach to virtually everything, including nicotine addictions, the pharmaceutical industry has transformed itself from a small industry that only served sick people with scientifically-proven medicines to a huge global industry that sells vaccines to everyone and needs no proof that they even work. By any assessment, it’s a brilliant strategy for increasing pharmaceutical profits.
Hiding the truth
October 19, 2006
Reuters
By Matthew Jones
The teenage girl who died shortly after being immunized against cervical cancer was killed by a malignant chest tumor and not by a reaction to the vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, an inquest heard on Thursday.
Natalie Morton, 14, fell ill on Monday after being vaccinated at her school under a national immunization program against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV).
She died a few hours later after being admitted to hospital.
“The pathologist has confirmed today at the opening of the inquest into the death of Natalie Morton that she died from a large malignant tumor of unknown origin in the heart and lungs,” said Dr Caron Grainger, joint director of public health for the Coventry area where Natalie died.
“There is no indication that the HPV vaccine, which she had received shortly before her death, was a contributing factor to the death, which could have arisen at any point,” Grainger said in a statement.
In paying tribute to Natalie, her stepfather Andrew Bullock said she was “kind, fun-loving and had a beautiful smile.”
“We will miss her very much,” he told reporters.
The Department of Health said the immunization program was continuing and that to date more than 1.4 million doses of Cervarix have been administered.
Manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline had recalled the batch of vaccine used at the school pending an investigation.
“GSK’s deepest sympathies lie with the parents at this very sad time,” said a spokeswoman on Thursday, adding that she did not want to comment further.
The program to vaccinate girls aged 12 to 13 began in September 2008 to fight cervical cancer, which is the 12th most common women’s cancer in Britain, killing more than 1,000 each year.
News of Morton’s death came shortly before U.S. health regulators again delayed a decision on whether to allow Glaxo to sell Cervarix in the United States where a panel of specialists has recommended its use.
An advisory panel to Japan’s Health Ministry backed the vaccine earlier this week.
Click here for the full report.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Not Caused by Virus
October 15, 2009
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Beware, readers, when you see articles in the mainstream media claiming that a retrovirus causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). The stories quote new research published in the journal Science which claims that this virus — known as XMRV — was found in 67% of CFS sufferers but only 4% of the general population. From there, the media leaps to the wild conclusion that CFS is caused by this virus.
What you need to know is that this disinformation is laying the groundwork for a future CFS vaccine that will be pushed on the population in much the same way as HPV vaccines are now. The first step in getting the public to accept yet another vaccine is to brainwash people into thinking that yet another disease is caused by a virus. From there, it’s only a matter of time before drug companies start talking about offering “treatment” in the form of a vaccine.
This is a play-by-play mirror image of the fraudulent push behind HPV vaccines. First, drug companies funded studies to “prove” that cervical cancer was caused by a virus (it actually isn’t). From there, they pushed their vaccine, claiming it “saves lives” by preventing cervical cancer. Of course, we now know the cervical cancer vaccine is a pharmaceutical hoax. Even one of its own top researchers recently declared that HPV vaccines are “ineffective.”
So why is the XMRV virus found in more CFS sufferers than the general population? It’s simple: People with CFS have compromised immune systems, and in this state of weakened immunity, they are unable to rid their bodies of not just XMRV, but many other viruses as well. The presence of this virus is a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Every viral announcement is a covert push for a future vaccine
For their own protection, it’s important that health consumers learn to recognize these hidden vaccine agendas when they see them. Every announcement about a virus causing some particular disease is actually a covert push for a future vaccine. That’s why drug companies are busily funding all kinds of research that hopes to find (or fabricate) a viral cause for almost every major disease.
You’ll see, on a regular basis, increasingly frequent news stories claiming researchers have “discovered” the virus that causes cancer, or diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease or even strokes. And then, months or years later you’ll see the FDA approving some new vaccine designed to “prevent” that disease or disorder. Before long, that vaccine will be added to an ever-growing list of other vaccines already being forced onto the population, and the whole thing will be framed in the language of “public health.”
Study Reveals Serious HPV Vaccine Problems: Fainting, Blood Clots, Death Among Risks
September 12, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
At first glance, a study just published in the August 19th edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is yet another whitewash job about the safety of the quadrivalent human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine –better known as Gardasil, the genital human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Licensed in June of 2006 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for girls and young women between the ages of nine and 26, the enormously hyped and advertised vaccine is designed to prevent infection with four types of HPV: types 16 and 18 can cause cervical cancer and types 6 and 11 are the most common types of genital warts.
The JAMA report says that the Gardasil adverse events reported have been mostly consistent with data gathered before the vaccine was considered safe enough to be widely administered to young girls. But a close reading shows some disturbing additional facts.
Just as NaturalNews has consistently reported, the vaccine has caused an extraordinary number of adverse side effects. And now comes word from the JAMA report that the HPV vaccine has unexpectedly caused episodes of fainting and life-threatening blood clots. In fact, in a statement to the media, these events were called “disproportional” — meaning these side effects are anything but rare. What’s more, among the 12,424 adverse reaction reports about the HPV vaccine, 772 (6.2 percent) were serious and included 32 reports of death.
Other problems caused by the vaccine include local site reactions, skin rashes, nausea, dizziness, headaches and even Guillain-Barre syndrome (a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system sometimes causing paralysis) and anaphylaxis (hypersensitivity reaction that can cause sudden death). As just reported by CBS news, the teenage daughter of physician Scott Ratner and his wife was one of the unfortunate girls who became severely ill with a chronic autoimmune disease, myofasciitis, after her first dose of Gardasil. Dr. Ratner told CBS his daughter was so ill with the neurological problem “..she’d have been better off getting cervical cancer than the vaccination.”
One the lead researchers for Gardasil has also gone public this week, telling CBS news there is no data showing that the vaccine even remains effective beyond five years. That means that if a ten year old girl is given the vaccine and subjected to possibly serious and even life-threatening side effects, the vaccine may offer her no protection at all when she hits her teens or young adulthood.
What makes the debate about Gardasil crazy to begin with is that studies have shown 70 to 90 percent of people with HPV naturally clear the virus from the body within two years of infection — with no help from drugs or vaccines. So the most effective protection from problems caused by HPV is to avoid being infected by the multiple strains of HPV by not engaging in promiscuous, unprotected-by-condoms sex (the virus is transmitted sexually and condoms do not offer 100 percent protection) and by keeping your body’s immune system strong and healthy through good nutrition, exercise and exposure to sunlight.
In an editorial accompanying the JAMA study, Charlotte Haug, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association in Oslo expressed her concerns about the aggressively promoted Gardasil vaccine: “Whether a risk is worth taking depends not only on the absolute risk, but on the relationship between the potential risk and the potential benefit. If the potential benefits are substantial, most individuals would be willing to accept the risks. But the net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain. Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened…”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
