Mike Huckman

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In the current monster-sized issue of Vogue, my producer, Ruth, while killing time on the Delta shuttle on our way from New York to Boston for a shoot this week, uncovered a blogworthy story buried in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of fashion ads. It represents a whole new idea in the world of direct-to-consumer [DTC] drug advertising.

Merck (MRK) has recently talked about how difficult it's been to sell its Gardasil vaccine for sexually-transmitted disease and cervical cancer to 19-to-26-year-old women. The company's trying everything. Earlier this summer I blogged about how MRK was advertising the shots to captive audiences going to see the "Sex and the City" movie. Well, now it's taking another new tack to turn Gardasil into gold: Gardasil jewelry. Yep. You read that right. Gardasil jewelry.

The spread is on four pages of heavy paper stock. If you want to check it out, I'll save you the time and frustration of thumbing through the ssue. (It's on page 599.)

You can also see the new "Charm 4 Life" campaign and save the $5 for "Vogue" here: www.charm4life.com. They're charging $32 for four "limited edition" bangles designed by Carolyn Rafaelian of the jewelry company "Alex and Ani." The proceeds will go to the "Prevent Cancer Foundation."

It's interesting that Merck is shifting from what's called a branded ad campaign back to a disease awareness campaign, in an attempt to tap into this part of the market.

Gardasil is an important, relatively new blockbuster growth-driver for MRK, but sales growth has been sputtering a bit lately. And last week it was the target of a one-two punch with a front-page, above-the-fold article in The New York Times and features in The New England Journal of Medicine questioning its cost effectiveness.

In the meantime, drug DTC has now gone QVC.

This article has 3 comments:

  •  
    Aug 29 03:07 PM
    Several years ago we published "Fatal Probe", a small book that warned women (younger and older) about the non-sterile landmines that exist in a large percentage of offices of OB/GYNs, health clinics and other medical offices.
    One entire chapter is devoted to a very clear and detailed warning that the Gardasil vaccine (it actually didn't even have a name at the time) was a scam. Those are hard words, but it sums up the point.
    It's a not-for-profit book and you can get it through Amazon (if they still have any).
    .
    "you'll never see a motorcycle parked in front of a psychiatrist's office."
    the rainman
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  •  
    Aug 30 11:08 AM
    Guardasil is a dangerous drug that has long-term, potential issues for young women. The fact that this company would try to entice mothers with guilt and young women with jewelry in order to sell their questionable product. For further, detailed information, please go to www.vaproject.org. by Prairie Collaborative for Immunization Safety that produced a high quality report to the State of Illinois stating why it would be totally inappropriate for Guardasil to be young women to be forced to take this vaccine. The article is entitled "What is wrong with the HPV vaccine mandate in Illinois?

    Here is just a sampling of the report which is startling:

    1. Merck has funded most HPV vaccine clinical trials and the majority authorship of published papers suggests considerable potential for extensive reporting bias. Over 40% of study co-authors are Merck employees and 81% had received money from Merck in some manner.
    Of the 69 listed co-authors, 81% had financial connections to Merck, 42% were actual Merck employees, presumably holding stock/options and therefore were positioned to financially benefit from their own favorable reporting. In four of five papers a co-author was actually a Gardasil patent holder.

    2. The HPV vaccine suffers a significant adverse reaction rate (90%) as reported in published trials and also in VAERS. There are no long-term safety studies yet over 500 REPORTS OF VACCINE FAILURES or ADVERSE REACTIONS have already been reported to the FDA. Gardasil contains a large quantity of a neurotoxin, ALUMINUM at doses that are KNOWN to cause NEUROLOGICAL DAMAGE in animals.

    3. Nearly all cervical cancer deaths are preventable by a simple PAP TEST and appropriate FOLLOW-UP.

    4. NOT ALL cervical cancers are related to HPV. Since the vaccine currently targets ONLY FOUR (4) HPV viruses that are known, prevention of all cases of HPV-related cancer is HIGHLY UNLIKELY.

    5. This novel type of vaccine even possesses the POTENTIAL TO WORSEN cervical cancer. If HPV virus types compete to colonize the cervix, then the prevalence of competing strains not targeted by the vaccine, COULD INCREASE! If these virus types are more aggressive, cervical cancer could STILL DEVELOP OR WORSE DEVELOP INTO A MORE LETHAL FORM!

    6. The actual Guardasil vaccine package insert assures that Merck’s HPV vaccine FAILED TO DETECT ADVERSE OUTCOMES, including REPRODUCTIVE HARM, in experimental animal studies. Unfortunately, HPV is only pathogenic to HUMANS and the applicability of animal studies is PROBLEMATIC, IN THE LEAST...AND INAPPROPRIATE AT BEST!!!

    7. there were a disproportionately large percentage of complications reported in women ≤ 16-years old (38%), representing a subgroup that was the least evaluated in Merck’s safety studies. Frequently reported events included syncope/fainting (62), seizures (6), hypesthesia/paresthesi... (34), and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (5).

    8. The concentration of aluminum in Gardasil is 25 mg/L or 18,000 times higher than what the FDA considers safe in injectable products. ALUMINUM has been shown to cause BEHAVIOR and MEMORY IMPAIRMENT associated with DEATH IN MOTOR NEURONS in animals at doses of 10-11 micrograms/kg. The Gardasil immunization series will expose 11 year-old girls to approximately 17 micrograms/kg, doses above that known to be NEUROTOXIC in animals Reports of neurological events following immunization with Gardasil are therefore not surprising if not predictable.

    9. Four years prior this problem was foreshadowed in a Congressional investigation reviewing conflicts of interest among healthcare agencies that reported too close of ties between FDA and CDC advisory committee members and the drug industry.[18] This included the placement of patent holders on advisory committees who were allowed to vote in approval for their own vaccine. Four of six members of a 1999 FDA advisory who approved Vioxx were granted waivers from the conflict-of-interest rule.

    10. Despite reporting adverse events in 90% of vaccine recipients (approximately 40% were systemic reactions), they minimized the significance by reporting similar reaction rates in placebo groups that had inappropriately RECEIVED HIGH DOSES OF ALUMINUM rather than conventional SALINE.

    AND LAST, BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE LEAST.....

    11. Financial pressures against the pharmaceutical giant are now even greater. Besides facing up to a $10 billion in legal losses from Vioxx they now anticipate a nearly $6 billion tax charge as the result of multiple tax reporting violations.[16] Is a company that already has spent millions of dollars on an advertising campaign for Gardasil capable of telling the truth when they are more financially desperate today than ever before? It has been estimated that HPV mandates could generate as much as $5 billion annually for Merck, who now has little liability in vaccine injuries that may ensue thanks to the CDC’s decision to distribute Gardasil through the Vaccine for Children Program. Any Gardasil-related legal claims will be addressed in the no-fault system of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rather than state and federal courts. Thus, taxpayers and consumers will pay for children’s injuries, not Merck. Limited liability further undermines Merck’s motivation to be forthright about vaccine problems.

    THIS IS THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHAT HAS BEEN TAKING PLACE WITH OTHER VACCINES SUCH AS THE MMR WHICH HAS MERCURY (THIMEROSAL), IN IT AND HAS CAUSED PROBLEMS FOR BABIES AND CHILDREN RECEIVING THEM AS, BUT NOT LIMITED TO: AUTISM AND ITS MANY VARIATIONS AND LEVELS, ADD/ADHD, THYROID PROBLEMS AND TREMENDOUS WEIGHT GAIN WHICH CONTRIBUTES TO MANY OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN, AND A MULTITUDE OF NEUROLOGICAL PROBLEMS DEVASTATING MILLIONS OF OUR CHILDREN FOREVER!!!

    THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS ISSUE ON YOUR BLOG AND I HOPE THAT MANY PARENTS WILL GO TO THE ABOVE LISTED WEBSITE AND READ FOR THEMSELVES THE ENTIRE REPORT AND SEE THAT THERE IS STILL MUCH RESEARCH TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCT, THAT MONEY IS THE ROOT OF THE HASTE AND THE EVIL INVOLVED IN PROMOTING IT ON A MASSIVE SCALE WITH SOME STATES AS TEXAS MANDATING ALL YOUNG WOMEN BE FORCED TO RECEIVE THIS VACCINATION, AND THAT WHEN IS AMERICA GOING TO STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS TO PREVENT GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES, THAT WE PAY FOR AS TAXPAYERS, WHO ARE SUPPOSE TO PROTECT US AT ALL COST, TO COMPROMISE THEMSELVES FOR MONEY, AND COMPROMISE OUR CHILDREN WHO ARE THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY AND THEIR HEALTH!!! BE WISE AND BE AWARE AMERICANS...AS THE OLD ADAGE STATES, "ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD" OR IN RELATION TO THESE MIRACLE PRODUCTS, "ALL THAT SOME SAY IS A MIRACLE PREVENTIVE DRUG...MAY NOT BE ONE AT ALL, BUT A TOXIN IMPAIRING AND DEBILITATING OUR CHILDREN FOR MONEY!!!"
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  •  
    Aug 31 09:06 PM
    Merck and prescribing physicians leave themselves open for tens of thousands of future claims concerning the acclaimed, so called, “success” of the brief 27-month study of the drug Gardasil.
    Could this vaccine actually establish or be the catalyst for some HPV microorganism that will remain dormant for 10, 20, 30 years? There is prior history of such vaccine related “complications.”
    Between January 1971 and December 1981, over 10,000 pregnant women received an HPV-77 vaccine.
    The outcome of conception (live birth, stillbirth, spontaneous or induced abortion) was
    tracked and reported for 500 of the recipients:
    Only 58% of those who received the HPV-77 vaccine – and were tracked – had full-term pregnancies. 42% had stillbirths, spontaneous or induced abortions.
    Ten years after it was begun, the HPV-77 vaccine program was discontinued in 1981.

    Complications included:
    Cataracts/congenital glaucoma, congenital heart disease, loss of hearing, pigmentary
    retinopathy, purpura, splenomegaly, jaundice (with onset beginning 24 hours after birth), microcephaly, mental retardation, meningoencephalitis, radiolucent bone disease.

    Obviously, the author was deeply concerned that the CDC had apparently vaccinated these 10,000+ women with the human Papillomavirus (HPV).
    However, several individuals in the medical profession have stated it is ridiculous to associate HPV-77 with any of the 120+ strains of the human Papillomavirus (HPV), that the HPV in HPV-77 were the initials of one of the persons who developed the vaccine.
    Representatives of the CDC refused to discuss the issue.
    Excerpt from “Fatal Probe”.
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