Gardasil Vaccination Effectiveness as Low as 60% for Females, 51% for Males: Study

As a growing number of families file Gardasil lawsuits against Merck, alleging that the drug maker has withheld important information about the risks associated with the widely used vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), a new study raises questions about the effectiveness of the vaccine for many children.

Researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published findings in the July 2022 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, indicating that the HPV vaccination is having an increasing effect as more youths get it and the benefits of herd immunity increase. However, the study suggests lower-than-expected levels of effectiveness at the individual level, indicating that it may be as low as 60% for women and 51% for men.

Gardasil was first introduced in 2006, for prevention of HPV infections, which can be sexually transmitted and lead to the later development of cervical cancer. Following years of marketing by the drug maker that suggested the vaccine was safe and effective, Gardasil vaccination has been widely recommended for young girls and boys before adolescence and potential sexual activity.

While most health agencies in the U.S. still strongly encourage young adults to receive a vaccination with Gardasil, concerns have emerged in recent years that Merck failed to adequately warn about problems that may be experienced after receiving the injection.

Dozens of product liability lawsuits now allege that Merck ignored evidence that side effects of Gardasil vaccination may lead to the development of disabling autoimmune disorders, neurological side effects and other complications. Plaintiffs claim that Merck failed to adequately research the product before aggressively marketing it for use among children nationwide, and withheld important safety information from families and the medical community.

In this new study, CDC researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the years 2003 to 2006, before the vaccine was introduced, as well as “vaccination eras” of 2007 to 2010, 2011 to 2014, and 2015 to 2018, evaluating data from sexually experienced participants between the ages of 14 and 24.

They found increasing effectiveness at the prevention of HPV in recent years, as the vaccine has become more prevalent, with herd immunity even helping to protect unvaccinated females from the cancer-causing disease. The changes were seen with quadrivalent HPV, which Gardasil is designed to prevent, and not with other types of HPV, increasing the likelihood that the impacts being seen are due to the vaccine. However, the findings also indicated fairly low rates of individual effectiveness.

“Vaccine effectiveness ranged from 60% to 84% during vaccine eras for females and was 51% during 2013 to 2016 for males,” researchers determined.

Vaccines can range widely in effectiveness. Flu vaccine effectiveness varies from year to year, based on how correctly the CDC determined which strains will be active that flu season. Vaccines for ailments like Rubella and Measles regularly exceed 90%, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves vaccines for public use, set a threshold of only 50% effectiveness for COVID-19 vaccines, although those approved for the U.S. market tend to far exceed that number.

Gardasil Vaccine Concerns Side Effects

Multiple medical journals have published studies suggesting a strong link between the Gardasil vaccine and POTS, which is an acronym for “Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome”. The condition is most known for its disruption of the autonomic nervous system’s regulation of many vital bodily functions including heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature.

The studies point to a number of ingredients in Gardasil which are known to sometimes cause problems with the autoimmune system, including Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS) and HPV LI-DNA fragments.

These additives have been linked to problems with cognitive and motor functions, autoimmune reactions, increased blood brain barrier permeability, and macrophagic myofascitis of the muscles. They are also believed to be able to block neuronal signaling, interrupt cell-to-cell communications, corrupt neuronal-glial interactions and interfere with synaptic transmissions, alter enzyme functions, impair protein functions and could alter DNA.