Mainstream news media widely reported last month that a French teenager had filed a lawsuit against French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur, and France's health regulators, over side-effects that were caused by the Gardasil HPV vaccine. Jean-Christophe Coubris Bordeaux is suffering from multiple sclerosis as a result of the Gardasil HPV vaccine.
This story is quite significant for two major reasons. First, you will never read a story like this happening in the United States, because you cannot sue a pharmaceutical company for damages as a result of vaccines in the United States. U.S. law, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011, gives total immunity to pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. for any damages related to vaccine products.
Secondly, negative news regarding lawsuits or government action against vaccines in countries outside the U.S. are almost never reported in the U.S. media. How this one slipped through the cracks is not clear to me at this point. It could be that they believe they have an air-tight defense in this lawsuit, and that the overall media exposure for them will be positive on this. Or, it could be that Sanofi, a French company, does not have the same media lobbyists and influence that American and UK drug firms seem to have.
The news regarding Gardasil outside the U.S. is very negative, while the U.S. media has continued to propagate the notion that Gardasil is one of the safest vaccines on the market. Japan recently announced it had stopped recommending Gardasil vaccines and has begun a full investigation into the safety of the vaccine, amid numerous reports of severe injuries from side effects.
In addition to all the bad publicity Gardasil is receiving over severe side effects, including death, a study that was completely ignored by the U.S. media earlier this year, linked the HPV vaccine to premature menopause in teenage girls.
In another recent report that was completely ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, it was found that the Bill Gates funded group, PATH, which participated in HPV vaccine drug trials in India, violated the law resulting in fatalities of young girls during the drug trials. An investigation is ongoing in India.
Could we be looking at another Merck disaster similar to Vioxx, which reportedly killed more than 60,000 people before it was removed from the market?