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Methods 277 young women (mean age 20·2 years [SD 1·7]) were randomly assigned to quadrivalent HPV (20 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 20 É g type 18) L1 virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccine and 275 (mean age 20·0 years [1·7]) to one of two placebo preparations at day 1, month 2, and month 6. For 36 months, participants underwent regular gynaecological examinations, cervicovaginal sampling for HPV DNA, testing for serum antibodies to HPV, and Pap testing. The primary endpoint was the combined incidence of infection with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18, or cervical or external genital disease (ie, persistent HPV infection, HPV detection at the last recorded visit, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, cervical cancer, or external genital lesions caused by the HPV types in the vaccine). Main analyses were done per protocol. Findings Combined incidence of persistent infection or disease with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 fell by 90% (95% CI 71-97, p<0·0001) in those assigned vaccine compared with those assigned placebo. Interpretation A vaccine targeting HPV types 6, 11, 16, 18 could substantially reduce the acquisition of infection and clinical disease caused by common HPV types. AUTHOR DISCUSSION We have shown that a multivalent vaccine is efficacious against HPV types that cause cancer and genital warts. Over 35 months’ follow-up, incidence of persistent infection associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 decreased by 89% in women allocated active vaccine who had at least one dose (ie, the modified intention-to-treat population) compared with those allocated placebo. Vaccine efficacy was 90% in the per-protocol efficacy population, suggesting that the vaccine was protective even during the vaccination period. For example, during the course of vaccination (day 1 through month 7), three women assigned active vaccine and five women assigned placebo were detected with HPV 18 DNA. Of these, only one was verifiable persistent infection (in the placebo group). Thus, one woman allocated placebo and no women allocated active vaccine developed persistent HPV 18 infection during the vaccination period. Furthermore, efficacy with regard to clinical disease associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 was 100%.

Methods Study design A phase II randomised, multicentre, double-blind placebo-controlled study of a quadrivalent HPV (type 6, 11, 16, and 18) L1 VLP vaccine was done in two parts. Part A was a sequential dose-escalation safety assessment, in which participants, investigators, and staff were blinded as to assignment of vaccine or placebo, but not to assignment of doses in the active-treatment group. Part B was a fully blinded dose-ranging assessment of immunogenicity and efficacy. Study procedures for individuals in part A and part B were identical. The results presented in this article are from part B. 1158 women aged 16-23 years were recruited in Brazil, Europe, and the USA. The study enrolled healthy women, who were not pregnant, had no previous abnormal Pap smears, and reported a lifetime history of four or fewer male sex partners. Enrolment of virgins was restricted to women who were 18 years or older and who were seeking contraception. This study did not exclude women with previous HPV infection. Participants were required to use effective contraception during the trial. The active quadrivalent vaccine was a mixture of four recombinant HPV type-specific VLPs (Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, PA, USA) consisting of the L1 major capsid proteins of HPV 6, 11, 16, and 18 synthesised in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.10,14,16 The four VLP types were purified and adsorbed onto amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulfate adjuvant. The placebo consisted of the same adjuvant and was visually indistinguishable from vaccine. Three preparations of a quadrivalent HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 L1 VLP were used. The three preparations were : 20 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 20 É g type 18, with 225 É g aluminium adjuvant ; 40 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 40 É g type 18, with 225 É g aluminium adjuvant ; and 80 É g type 6, 80 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 80 É g type 18, with 395 É g aluminium adjuvant. The study had two placebo groups with adjuvant doses of 225 É g or 450 É g for appropriate safety comparisons. 0·5 mL vaccine or placebo was given by intramuscular injection at day 1, month 2, and month 6. After vaccination, participants were observed for 30 min. Temperatures were also recorded orally every day in the evening for 5 days after vaccination, and the participant noted adverse events by standard diary card for 14 days after vaccination. Gynaecological examination was done at day 1 and at months 7, 12, 24, and 36. A ThinPrep™ Pap test (Cytyc, Boxborough, MA, USA) and external genital, lateral vaginal, and cervical swabs for PCR analysis of HPV were obtained from all participants at day 1 and at months 7, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36. Biopsy samples of external genital lesions identified during the study were taken, and serum samples were obtained at day 1 and months 2, 3, 6, 7, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36. This study was done in accordance with national or local requirements for ethics-committee review, informed consent, and other statutes or regulations regarding the protection of the rights and welfare of those participating in biomedical research. All individuals, or their parents or legal guardians, gave written informed consent after review of the protocol procedures. The aim of the study was to assess a quadrivalent HPV L1 VLP vaccine in terms of the composite primary endpoint of persistent infection associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18, or cervical or external genital disease compared with placebo. Women with persistent infection were defined as those who had the same vaccine-HPV-type DNA in cervicovaginal samples obtained 7 months after vaccination as those obtained from two or more consecutive visits (required to be 4 months or longer apart unless at least one tissue sample was diagnosed as cervical disease by a panel of pathologists), or as those who had vaccine-HPV-type DNA detected in a sample recorded during the last visit before being lost to follow-up. HPV-associated disease was defined as a tissue sample diagnosed as CIN by a panel of pathologists 7 months after vaccination ; vulval intraepithelial neoplasia ; vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia ; external genital warts ; or cervical, vulval, or vaginal cancer with vaccine-HPV-type DNA detected in tissue from, or in a swab of, the same lesion and in cervicovaginal samples obtained at the visit before the biopsy visit.

For starters, it could cause harm. All vaccines carry the risk of injury or death. During trials, nine individuals developed arthritis after receiving the vaccine versus three for the placebo, out of approximately 21,000 individuals in that trial. Nine kids with arthritis after receiving the vaccine might not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, arthritis is better than cancer, right? That depends. Given the fact that cervical cancer is relatively rare, highly preventable and most often successfully treated early on, maybe the risk of arthritis — a painful and often debilitating disease — isn’t a worthwhile trade-off.

In order to learn the truth about an unknown, honest science dictates that we have to compare it to a known. When most people think about a vaccine placebo, they are probably thinking about saline. But that’s not what was used during trials. The “placebo” in this case was an aluminium-containing shot. The vaccine itself also contains aluminium. Aluminium hydroxide is what’s known as an adjuvant — it stimulates immune response. Studies in both animals and humans have found that aluminium adjuvants can cause death of brain cells. Similar studies have also shown that aluminium adjuvants in vaccines can cross the blood-brain barrier, as well as cause injection-site inflammation leading to chronic joint and muscle pain and fatigue. Aluminium adjuvants have never been subjected to clinical trials for safety. Read that again: Although the metal has been used in vaccines for decades, it has never been rigorously studied for long-term safety. So perhaps the 1 case of lupus and 2 cases of arthritis out of 9,701 participants who received the “placebo” were not just statistical anomalies. Maybe it was the aluminium. Perhaps that would also explain the 1 case of juvenile arthritis, 2 cases of rheumatoid arthritis, 5 cases of arthritis and 1 case of reactive arthritis in 11,813 Gardasil recipients. We’ll never know. (Some of the trial participants did, in fact, receive straight saline but there’s no way to tell from the data released which cases are which.) More importantly, a reactive placebo artificially decreases the appearance of danger of an experimental vaccine in a clinical trial because the drug company only has to prove that adverse events weren’t statistically significant in the vaccine group versus the placebo group. So using aluminium-containing placebos falsely inflates the adverse-event data of the “placebo” group, making the vaccine look relatively safe by comparison. Gardasil contains 225 mcg of aluminium. Neither Merck nor the U.S. FDA would answer my questions as to how much aluminium was used in the placebo. (Sanofi Pasteur MSD is marketing the vaccine in Europe and is a joint venture of French company Sanofi Pasteur and U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck.) Clinical trial investigators dismissed most of the 102 serious adverse events including 17 deaths that occurred in the clinical trials as unrelated to the study. But given the reactivity profile of aluminium, can we really say that for sure?

Those who received the vaccine reported even more serious adverse events such as gastroenteritis, appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, asthma, bronchospasm and arthritis. In a never before done study, scientists recently found a link between aluminium in vaccines and symptoms associated with Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and Alzheimer’s. “This is suspicious,” neuroscientist Chris Shaw told the Georgia Straight, Canada’s largest urban weekly. “Either this [link] is known by industry and it was never made public, or industry was never made to do these studies by Health Canada. I’m not sure which is scarier.” Shaw said there could be 10,000 studies showing aluminium hydroxide is safe to be injected, but that he hasn’t been able to find one study that looked beyond the first few weeks of injection. The reason this is significant, according to Shaw, is that neurological damage can take years to manifest.

He defines CFS as an epidemic illness, one which occurs primarily in the late summer and fall. It is typified by an acute onset of symptoms which vary from malaise to severe non-stop headaches and body pains now known in the US as fibromyalgia or myalgias. It is also accompanied by muscle weakness which develop alongside the pain symptoms and changes in brain function. The change in brain function is in several areas with one, a measurable decrease in the expected IQ, and, two, major cognitive losses that is, loss of sensory abilities to define one’s environment. which is very traumatic for the patients. Physicians have found very few physical modalities of the disease to help them to further diagnose the disease. The disease process, he adds, very much resembles poliomyelitis in its incubation period. Prior to 1962, before polio immunization became generalized. epidemics of CFS like disease occurred concurrently with polio epidemics. A lot of people at that time felt that there may be a type of poliomyelitis-type injury without the paralytic dysfunction. "My supposed expertise with hep B immunisation. And I say "supposed" because we know almost nothing….We know very little about hep B disease. We have no statistics in Canada, serious statistics. We don’t know, for instance, how many children in Canada die of it every year. There are no statistics. We don’t know who the people who fall ill with hep B are. Are they Haitian immigrants? Are they people who have just arrived from China? There are no government statistics on this information…. Why are we, in a time of major economic, medical and financial difficulty, spending literally a billion dollars, because that is what it would cost to immunise everybody in Canada against hepatitis B, for something in which we have the lowest risk in the world, for which we have no statistics, and for which there is no serious investigation on the side effects? I would not for a minute say not to take hep B immunisation if you work in a hospital dealing with blood products….We have to know what we are doing in medicine before we go and immunise tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children…Because if they develop brain dysfunction after hep B immunisation when they’re in kindergarten, who in the world will know the reason if they fail grades one, two, three and four? Was it because they were stupid, not motivated, not intellectually able, or on drugs? Who is going to know if it is that or if they were brain dysfunctions due to immunisations that, we know, occur to minor degrees in many types of immunisations? I did have a chance to spend a couple of evenings with the man in charge of getting the American soldiers ready for the Gulf (in Baton Rouge). He was in charge of anti-chemical, anti-germ warfare. He told me that many of the Gulf War Syndrom people were hospitalised immediately after massive immunisations and never got to the Gulf. I have never seen that written up. It is very interesting to note that hep B immunisation was only given to those people sent to the Gulf who were mediacl personnel, because they did not feel there was a risk for the regular soldier. Now, if the American government did not feel it was a risk to people in combat, it makes us wonder why we are giving it to our children today. We looked at hep B immunisation in Quebec province because one nurse phoned us saying she had CFS after having hep B immunization.....About a month later the same nurse called again, she now had 5 other nurses in the area who had fallen ill with CFS-like symptoms after the vaccine, all were unable to return to work. I told her to phone the maker, Merck. She told me she did and they said the 6 nurses were the only persons in the whole world that had ever had a serious side effect and therefore there couldn't possibly be a link. And, they told her that she was the only person who had ever phoned....she said that when her doctor phoned, he too was told he was the only person in the world that had ever called, and when each of the doctors of the other nurses called in, each was told the same thing. I also called Merck...and they said.."Oh Dr Hyde, you are the only doctor in all of Canada that has ever contacted us with such a complaint."

This same nurse....(had) amassed 20 or 30 names of individuals, all post hep B immunisation cases...We received close to 120 calls from nurses and health care workers in the Quebec area with problems...many were severely disabled." Dr Hyde. Dr Hyde mentioned that the investigation into the hep B vaccine raised after his efforts was funded, organised and run by a pharmaceutical company. He was not invited. "Nor was Dr. Phaneuf who has over 100 cases of post-hepatitis B immunisation in Quebec…Nobody who had ever published a paper on post-hepatitis immunisation adverse reaction was invited (to the Toronto conference on hepatitis B). So it was a very one sided meeting." All paid for by Merck. When he asked the government for a copy of the research they said they had completed using the list of hepatitis B "victims" he had provided, he was told that it had been destroyed for lack of space! Reproduced with permission of Here’s The Key Inc, CP309, Waterloo, Qc JOE 2NO, Canada. Tel: 001 450 297 2533. Fax: 001 450 297 4140 Selected extracts taken from The Trial of the Medical Mafia by Jochim Schafer ISBN 2921783029. Available from: Whale Books, UK. Tel: 01981 240 125. To reach Guylaine Lanctot, M.D. Tel: 001 514 297 4128. Fax: 001 514 297 4140 [Vaccination]  [CFS/ME & vaccines]  [Dr Lanctot]

Vaccine Safety Concerns Most parents today have never seen a case of diphtheria, measles, or other once-common diseases now preventable by vaccines. As a result, some parents wonder why their children must receive shots for diseases that do not seem to exist. Myths and misinformation about vaccine safety abound and can confuse parents who are trying to make sound decisions about their children's healthcare. Vaccination is a common, memorable event, and association of events in time often signals cause and effect. While some of the sickness or reactions that follow vaccination may be caused by the vaccine, many are unrelated events that occur by coincidence after vaccination. Therefore, the scientific research that attempts to distinguish true vaccine side effects from unrelated, chance occurrences is important. Recent Health Concerns Entertainment as a Source of Health Information Questions About Vaccine Recalls Kawasaki Syndrome and RotaTeq Vaccine Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine and Autism Guillain Barré Syndrome and Menactra® Meningococcal Vaccine fact sheet and frequently asked questions Mercury and Vaccines (Thimerosal) Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal-free Vaccines Frequently Asked Questions about Mercury and Thimerosal Timeline: Thimerosal in Vaccines (1999–2008) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Archived Health Concerns Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (updated March 2004) Cancer, Simian Virus 40, and the Polio Vaccine (updated April 2004) fact sheet and frequently asked questions Chronic Diseases Diabetes (updated May 2004) Febrile Seizures After MMR and DTP Vaccinations Hair Loss Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the Measles Vaccine Multiple Vaccinations and the Immune System (updated May 2004) Multiple Sclerosis and the Hepatitis B Vaccine (updated September 2004) Additives in Vaccines Intussusception and Rotavirus Vaccine Page last reviewed: February 29, 2008 Page last updated: February 29, 2008 Content source: Immunization Safety Office, Office of the Chief Science Officer

Shots In The Dark by Barbara Loe Fisher   The worldwide acceptance of mass vaccination to suppress infectious childhood diseases once fiercely resisted is one of the most successful public relations stories in the history of medicine. As a result, epidemics of smallpox, which once swept through 18th- and 19th-century port cities such as Halifax, New York, and Boston without warning and cut down entire families, are now dry facts relegated to medical books. Images of children struggling through whooping cough, walking down the street coughing spasmodically, and stopping at curbs to spit up sticky mucus are only fading memories for grandparents alive to talk about what their parents told them.  Baby boomers and their parents still remember lining up in school in 1955 for polio vaccinations, with the hope that this magic bullet would keep them out of the dreaded iron lung.  Mass vaccination has dramatically suppressed childhood diseases. In Canada, recorded diphtheria cases dropped from 9,000 in 1924 to two to five by 1994.  When measles vaccination began in the United States between 1963 and 1965, doctors reported more than 400,000 cases annually; by 1995, that number had dwindled to 309. Cases of tetanus are almost unheard of in North America and Europe.   Yet the universal use of vaccines as a worthy goal that prevents needless suffering and that benefits all mankind has begun to be challenged.   The voices of critics are heard in the living rooms of families whose children have been injured or have died from reactions to routine childhood vaccinations, and in courtrooms, where parents are suing vaccine makers and challenging mandatory vaccination laws. In the U.S. Congress, legislators who have heard them have set up a vaccine injury compensation program. At scientific conferences and in the pages of prestigious medical journals, researchers and physicians are risking their careers by discussing vaccine side effects.

Today, vaccinations are big business. In 1995, an international high-technology research firm, Frost & Sullivan, projected that the worldwide human vaccine market will increase from $2.9 billion to more than $7 billion by the year 2001.   Public health officials in every country assist the industry�s growth, often by force of laws that ensure citizens use about a dozen different viral and bacterial vaccines, including ones to suppress even generally mild childhood diseases such as chicken pox. Traditional public health measures, improving sanitation, nutrition, living conditions, health education, and access to affordable medical care, especially in underprivileged populations often take a backseat to achieving a 100 per cent vaccination rate.   Most medical doctors consider vaccines their single most important tool in protecting public health. Few would question the profound importance of vaccines to public health, wrote Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD, medical director of the March of Dimes and chairman of the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Committee, in a 1994 National Academy of Sciences report, 

Adverse Events Associated with Vaccines Not only have deaths from the most common childhood infections been almost eliminated, but also so have the devastating morbidities of diseases like measles, paralytic polio, and congenital rubella. This revolution has . . . led to major savings in medical costs and gains in work productivity, as well as to reductions in deaths and suffering.   An ancient philosophical dispute goes modern   The whole idea of man versus nature can be traced back to the origins of western medicine more than 2,000 years ago. In a four-volume book series Divided Legacy: A History of Schism in Medical Thought by medical historian Harris L. Coulter, PhD, the centuries-old war between empiricism and rationalism in medicine is revealed as a contest between two competing health philosophies. Is each individual governed by a vital force that, through unique reactions to external stimuli, is capable of participating in the healing process, as empiricists, including Hippocrates, have maintained?  Or are all human organisms simply a series of complex chemical reactions governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, and mechanics, as rationalists, including Louis Pasteur, have maintained?   Empiricists accept the existence of viruses and bacteria as part of nature and illness as part of the life process. They consider fevers, diarrhea, and runny noses good, not bad, and do not suppress them with chemically based drugs that might interfere with the body�s natural ability to harness the immune system to participate in the healing process. They stress that each individual is unique and that individualized therapeutic techniques can stimulate the body to restore health. Empiricists dislike the one-size-fits-all mass vaccination approach. 

[Transcripts of Oral Argument (#1) (#2)] the landmark (7-2) abortion decision voided the abortion laws of nearly every state. Striking down a Texas statute that prohibited all abortions except to save the mother's life, the Supreme Court, per Blackmun, held that abortion was a constitutional right that the states could only abridge after the first six months of pregnancy. More specifically, the Court held that: (1) the Court had jurisdiction; (2) Roe's case was not moot, despite the birth of her child, because the case was "capable of repetition, yet evading review;" (3) the right to privacy includes the right to abortion; (4) since abortion is a fundamental right, state regulation must meet the "strict scrutiny" standard, which means the state must show it has a "compelling interest" in having the law; (5) the word "person" in the 14th Amendment, does not apply to the unborn; (6) the state has an important interest in both preserving the heath of a pregnant woman and in protecting fetal life; (7) the state's interest in maternal health becomes compelling at three months; (8) the state's interest in fetal life becomes compelling at viability--six months; (9) the state may not regulate abortion at all during the first trimester; (10) the state may regulate abortion during the second three months, but only for the protection of the woman's health; (11) the state may regulate or ban abortion during the third trimester to protect fetal life. Roe, the only successful suit of a group of test cases designed to challenge validity of the Texas abortion statute, was brought by Norma McCorvey (alias "Jane Roe") and her lawyer, Sarah Weddington. It was heard twice by the Court because the retirement of Black and Harlan had left two vacancies. With Powell and Rehnquist added, the case was then re-heard. Though Douglas was rightly the intellectual father of Roe, it was Blackmun who worked feverishly behind the scenes to build a consensus for the ruling that he would ultimately write for the Court. [Recently released internal memoranda, while shedding fascinating light on the workings of the Roe Court, have also resulted in stark criticism of the majority's conduct.] The two dissenters, Rehnquist and White would champion the cause against Roe for more than twenty years to come. Though legally it has been eclipsed by Casey, it remains as the essential centerpiece of constitutional jurisprudence on abortion.

[Transcripts of Oral Argument (#1) (#2) ] the landmark (7-2) abortion decision voided the abortion laws of nearly every state. Striking down a Texas statute that prohibited all abortions except to save the mother's life, the Supreme Court, per Blackmun, held that abortion was a constitutional right that the states could only abridge after the first six months of pregnancy. More specifically, the Court held that: (1) the Court had jurisdiction; (2) Roe's case was not moot, despite the birth of her child, because the case was "capable of repetition, yet evading review;" (3) the right to privacy includes the right to abortion; (4) since abortion is a fundamental right, state regulation must meet the "strict scrutiny" standard, which means the state must show it has a "compelling interest" in having the law; (5) the word "person" in the 14th Amendment , does not apply to the unborn; (6) the state has an important interest in both preserving the heath of a pregnant woman and in protecting fetal life; (7) the state's interest in maternal health becomes compelling at three months; (8) the state's interest in fetal life becomes compelling at viability--six months; (9) the state may not regulate abortion at all during the first trimester; (10) the state may regulate abortion during the second three months, but only for the protection of the woman's health; (11) the state may regulate or ban abortion during the third trimester to protect fetal life. Roe, the only successful suit of a group of test cases designed to challenge validity of the Texas abortion statute, was brought by Norma McCorvey (alias "Jane Roe") and her lawyer, Sarah Weddington. It was heard twice by the Court because the retirement of Black and Harlan had left two vacancies. With Powell and Rehnquist added, the case was then re-heard. Though Douglas was rightly the intellectual father of Roe, it was Blackmun who worked feverishly behind the scenes to build a consensus for the ruling that he would ultimately write for the Court. [Recently released internal memoranda, while shedding fascinating light on the workings of the Roe Court, have also resulted in stark criticism of the majority's conduct.]   The two dissenters, Rehnquist and White would champion the cause against Roe for more than twenty years to come. Though legally it has been eclipsed by Casey , it remains as the essential centerpiece of constitutional jurisprudence on abortion.

Today's News Today's News This Issue Letters to the Editor Writers Eminent Domain Reform To Be Introduced in U.S.House of Representatives Property Owners Still Left Unprotected from Federally Funded Abuses Two Years After Kelo By The Castle Coalition Arlington, Va. - July 12, Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2007 to stop taxpayer funding of eminent domain abuse. This bipartisan bill would counter the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows governments to use eminent domain to seize private property on behalf of private developers in hopes of increasing tax revenue. The Act would deny for two fiscal years economic development funds to state and local governments that use eminent domain for private development. In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R. 4128, the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005, by a vote of 376 to 38. The bill was co-sponsored by representatives from across the political and ideological spectrum, including Representatives Waters, Sensenbrenner, John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), and Henry Bonilla (R-TX). Despite unprecedented bipartisan political and public support, the bill languished in the Senate Judiciary Committee and ultimately died. "Federal protections from eminent domain abuse are long overdue," said Bert Gall, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which argued the Kelo case on behalf of the homeowners. IJ and the Castle Coalition - a nationwide grassroots organization of property owners and activists dedicated to stopping eminent domain abuse - have led the fight to reform state and federal eminent domain laws. "Even though the vast majority of Americans oppose the abuse of eminent domain for private development, the federal government still funds that abuse." June 23 marked the two-year anniversary of the Kelo decision. In every poll since that ruling, the public is overwhelmingly against eminent domain for private use. Forty-two states have passed eminent domain reforms reining in the Kelo decision, including 10 states where voters passed ballot measures by wide margins in last year's elections. But many of those reforms

Why It’s Important to Monitor Vaccine Safety John Iskander, MD, MPH, acting director, Immunization Safety Office, and Robert T. Chen, MD, MA, blood safety specialist, Epidemiology Branch, NCHHSTP, wrote a chapter in the new book Infectious Disease Surveillance to explain why it is important to monitor vaccine safety. Rare Reactions. The most important reason is to detect rare reactions. Although vaccines are tested extensively before they are licensed for use in the United States, not enough people are included in the tests to detect reactions that happen only rarely. If serious reactions are found when the vaccine is in widespread use, the vaccine may be withdrawn. Higher Risk Groups. Vaccine safety monitoring also makes sure new vaccines are safe for groups such as the elderly, those with chronic medical conditions, and pregnant women. Vaccine trials may deliberately exclude members of these groups. Public Confidence in Vaccines. Monitoring vaccine safety also helps to maintain public confidence needed to keep enough people vaccinated to prevent disease outbreaks. How We Know If Vaccines Are Safe Vaccine safety cannot be measured directly. Instead, it is estimated by the number of "adverse events" reported. An adverse event is "... a medical incident that takes place after an immunization ... and is believed to be caused by the immunization."1 Adverse events include— True reactions to the vaccine. Events that would have occurred even if the person had not been vaccinated (unrelated coincidences). Reactions related to mistakes in vaccine preparation, handling, or administration. Events that cannot be related directly to the vaccine; their cause is unknown. A formal scientific study usually is required to distinguish between coincidences and true reactions. It is rarely possible to say for sure whether a vaccine caused a specific adverse event. Almost all national immunization programs have a system for reporting adverse events. The United States Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)2 and the Canadian Adverse Events Following Immunization Surveillance System (CAEFISS)* are examples. People who report a vaccine reaction to VAERS or CAEFISS are asked if the reaction led to hospitalization, life-threatening illness, disability, or death. These events are classified as "serious," and are often subject to further study that yields important information. For example, reports to CAEFISS identified a common illness among people who received flu vaccines from one Canadian manufacturer in one season.3 Equally important, such systems have supported the safety of new vaccines such as the new meningococcal B and C vaccines in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Other monitoring programs include the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) project, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, and the Brighton Collaboration. The VSD project is a collaboration between CDC's Immunization Safety Office and eight large managed care organizations that allows for planned vaccine safety studies as well as quick investigation of possible issues. The CISA Network of six medical research centers conducts clinical research on vaccine-associated health risks, and the Brighton Collaboration develops standard case definitions for problems following immunization as well as guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation. Vaccine safety monitoring becomes more important with new vaccines, expanded vaccine recommendations, and new global immunization initiatives. Reporting systems like VAERS will continue to be used to monitor adverse events, so vaccines can continue to be held to very high standards of safety.

Pro-abortion - TodayThe pro-abortion agenda has matured from back alley abortions, to abortion on demand in all 50 states up to 24-25 weeks after fertilization, and even to the point of allowing partial birth abortions. Pro-abortion advocates believe in the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. There are even laws now dictating abortion rights of teenagers and their parents. Is the law on the side of pro-abortion, or isn't it?

Pro-abortion - The ProblemPro-abortion - Is the verdict really in? Abortion is legal in all 50 states. On the other hand, murder is illegal in all 50 states. Herein lies the problem -- How can we say it is against the law to kill and allow the abortion rate of 1 in 4 pregnancies to continue? When does the origin of life begin? Were we created at conception, knit together in our mother's womb right from the beginning? Or is it the air in our lungs that changes our status from a fetus to a life? Of course, the pro-abortion position must advocate that life doesn't begin until some time late in the gestation process. However, God's position has always been that we are each a unique individual created by Him for a special purpose from the moment of conception. Recent discoveries in biochemistry confirm what the Bible has declared for centuries, that each of us is "fearfully and wonderfully made." From the moment the sperm miraculously fertilizes the egg, God begins the process of creating our inmost being and knits us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13-14).

Vienna, Virginia - The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the nation's leading vaccine safety and informed consent advocacy organization, is urging state legislatures to investigate the safety and cost of mandating Merck's HPV vaccine (GARDASIL) for all pre-adolescent girls before introducing legislation amending state vaccine laws. In an analysis of reports made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) since the CDC's July 2006 universal use recommendation for all young girls, NVIC found reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, joint pain and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. In a separate evaluation of costs for young girls being vaccinated in private pediatrician offices, NVIC discovered that parents living in the Washington, D.C. area will be paying between $500 and $900 to have their daughters receive three doses of GARDASIL. "GARDASIL safety appears to have been studied in fewer than 2,000 girls aged 9 to 15 years and it is unclear how long they were followed up. [1] VAERS is now receiving reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, arthritis and other neurological problems in young girls who have received the shot," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "At the same time, parents who take their daughters to private pediatricians are going to be shocked to find that they will be paying two to three times the widely publicized $360 cost for the three-dose series. The cost is going to break the pocketbooks of parents and break the banks of both insurance companies and taxpayers, when the reality is that almost all cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer can be prevented with annual pap screening of girls who are sexually active." Between July 2006 and January 2007, there have been 82 reports of adverse events filed with VAERS following receipt of GARDASIL by girls and boys ranging in age from 11 to 27 years. Reaction reports have come from 21 states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia. All but three of the reports were for adverse events which occurred within one week of vaccination and more than 60 percent occurred within 24 hours of vaccination. "The most frequent serious health events after GARDASIL shots are neurological symptoms," said NVIC Health Policy Analyst Vicky Debold, RN, Ph.D. "These young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, slurred speech, fainting, involuntary contraction of limbs (seizures), muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet and joint pain. Some of the girls have lost consciousness during what appears to be seizures." Debold added "The manufacturer product insert should include mention of syncopal episodes, seizures and Guillain-Barre Syndrome so doctors and parents are aware these vaccine adverse responses have been associated with the vaccine."

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and most persons naturally clear the infection from the body without symptoms. [3] However, many years of chronic HPV infection is associated with a higher risk of pre-cancerous changes in the cervix that can lead to cancer unless diagnosed and treated promptly. High risk factors for chronic HPV infection include smoking, long-term use of oral contraceptives and co-infection with HIV, herpes and chlamydia. [4] There has been a more than 70 percent drop in cervical cancer deaths in American women since the 1950's due to routine pap smears and nearly all cervical cancers can be prevented with regular pap smear screening and treatment. [5]

By MATT APUZZO Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON Members of the military sued on Wednesday to prevent the Pentagon from requiring anthrax vaccinations, the latest legal challenge over the vaccine’s possible health risks. Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant defense secretary for health affairs, announced in October that the military would reinstate the mandatory program for troops and Defense Department civilian personnel and contractors serving in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Korean Peninsula. A federal judge suspended the program in 2004 after finding fault in the Food and Drug Administration’s process for approving the drug. Sullivan allowed the Pentagon to vaccinate on a voluntary basis. Last December, the FDA reaffirmed its finding that the vaccine was safe. “This is a safe and effective vaccine,” Winkenwerder told reporters in October. He said the possibility of an anthrax attack is “very real and it has not gone away.”

College graduates also enjoy benefits beyond increased income. A 1998 report published by the Institute for Higher Education Policy reviews the individual benefits that college graduates enjoy, including higher levels of saving, increased personal/professional mobility, improved quality of life for their offspring, better consumer decision making, and more hobbies and leisure activities (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 1998). According to a report published by the Carnegie Foundation, non-monetary individual benefits of higher education include the tendency for postsecondary students to become more open-minded, more cultured, more rational, more consistent and less authoritarian; these benefits are also passed along to succeeding generations (Rowley and Hurtado, 2002). Additionally, college attendance has been shown to "decrease prejudice, enhance knowledge of world affairs and enhance social status" while increasing economic and job security for those who earn bachelor's degrees (Ibid.) Research has also consistently shown a positive correlation between completion of higher education and good health, not only for oneself, but also for one's children. In fact, "parental schooling levels (after controlling for differences in earnings) are positively correlated with the health status of their children" and "increased schooling (and higher relative income) are correlated with lower mortality rates for given age brackets" (Cohn and Geske, 1992).

While it is clear that investment in a college degree, especially for those students in the lowest income brackets, is a financial burden, the long-term benefits to individuals as well as to society at large, appear to far outweigh the costs.

After all, richer people could be living there and paying more taxes

A Pap test is done to look for changes in the cells of the cervix . During a Pap test, a small sample of cells from the surface of the cervix is collected by your health professional. The sample is then spread on a slide (Pap smear) or mixed in a liquid fixative (liquid-based cytology) and sent to a lab for examination under a microscope. The cells are examined for abnormalities that may indicate abnormal cell changes, such as dysplasia or cervical cancer.It is important to have your first Pap test within 3 years of having sex for the first time or by age 21. You may be able to stop having regular Pap tests after you are 65 to 70 years of age, if you have had 3 normal Pap tests in a row, you do not have a high risk of cervical cancer, and you have not had any new sex partners over the last 3 years. If you do not have a uterus, you don’t need a Pap test as long as cervical dysplasia or cervical cancer was not the reason your uterus was removed. You may need more frequent Pap tests if you have had an abnormal Pap test in the past. Talk with your health professional about how often you should have Pap tests.A high-risk type of the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause of most cases of cervical cancer. In women older than 30, an HPV test may be done at the same time as a Pap test. A vaccine (Gardasil) is available to prevent infection with the types of HPV that are most likely to cause cervical cancer.