A new study shows a common over-the-counter drug cuts cervical cancer risk by a whopping 47 percent, as I’ll explain in a moment. Unfortunately, this new research isn’t stopping the mainstream medical and public health experts from pushing Gardasil on their innocent, young patients.
Gardasil is a dangerous, largely ineffective, and needless vaccine that supposedly prevents cervical cancer by vaccinating against a few strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV).
HPV is a common virus that spreads through sexual contact. In fact, it’s the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world. And 80 percent of women will develop at least one strain of HPV by the age of 50. But it usually goes away on its own, without treatment.
In rare cases, the HPV virus can cause cervical cancer. So big pharma promotes the Gardasil as a way to prevent cervical cancer. But I have many problems with this twisted rationale.
First, cervical cancer rates are already low. And they’ve been dropping steadily since the 1960s with the introduction of the safe and affordable Pap smear screening test for cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, just 12,900 women will develop cervical cancer in 2015. And just 4,100 women will die from it. (No one wants to hear of deaths from cancer. Especially deaths in young women. But these numbers are extremely low in light of all the women who develop HPV.)
Second, many experts now call out the HPV vaccine as the greatest medical scandal of the century. And when it comes to the latest crops of vaccines, that’s really saying something.
I first heard about the idea for the HPV vaccine more than 20 years ago from a well-connected Washington “insider.” I knew the unscrupulous “investors” behind the idea. And it sounded like a bad idea to me even back then.
Eventually, this group developed the vaccine and sold it to Merck. Since then, it’s been one scandal after another. We now know Merck suppressed implicating data about the dangers of the vaccine, while government regulators looked the other way. Plus, some researchers are worried the vaccine gives young women a false sense of security against all sexually transmitted diseases. (Some social theorists also believe this is the intended outcome as part of a larger social agenda to transform American social values.)
The latest scandal involves Dr. Julie Gerberding, the former CDC Director who led the agency between 2002 and 2009. Under her leadership, the CDC relentlessly pushed the HPV vaccine, minimized its risks, and largely misrepresented its benefits.
Conveniently, Dr. Gerberding now works for Merck, the maker of the vaccine that she supposedly regulated for public safety. Well, she just cashed in Merck stock worth more than $2 million as payola–that’s a full government career of earnings in one tidy payment.
Federal law prohibits former members of Congress and White House staff from joining the lobbying industry for years after they leave office. But federal bureaucrats really control the agenda. They frequently thumb their noses at both Congress and the White House. And they pass through a revolving door, right from cushy federal positions to high-paying jobs working for big pharma. And they reap big payoffs from the industries they initially regulate, as did Gerberding.
In the midst of this ongoing tragedy, a new study found women who frequently take aspirin dramatically cut their risk of cervical cancer.
For this study, researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, examined 328 patients with cervical cancer and 1,312 control participants–similar in age and background–without cervical cancer.
Women who reported taking aspirin seven or more times per week had a 47 percent lower risk of developing cervical cancer regardless of how long they took the aspirin. Plus, women who took aspirin regularly over five or more years had a 41 percent lower risk. The most typical individual dose of aspirin taken was a standard 325 mg tablet.
Researchers also tracked use of acetaminophen (Tylenol). Predictably, there was no benefit to taking Tylenol. (Of course, researchers in this study didn’t track hazards of acetaminophen. But I will detail more of those dangers in a Daily Dispatch next week.)
Aspirin is one of the oldest and safest drugs on the market today. It’s been widely available as an over-the-counter remedy since before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (the forerunner of the FDA) even came into existence. Accordingly, its approval was “grandfathered” into acceptance.
Aspirin originally derives from the bark of the white willow (Salix alba), a natural remedy used by Native Americans. The acetylsalicylic acid ingredient in aspirin also occurs naturally in meadowsweet grass, a much more abundant and harvestable source.
More and more research shows aspirin protects you against a variety of cancers. Not just cervical cancer. In fact, we now know a low-dose of daily aspirin clearly reduces your colon cancer risk by up to 40 percent.
Plus, research conducted over the past few decades also consistently links daily, low-dose aspirin with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 cause of mortality in the U.S. (Though, remember, never combine aspirin with blood thinner drugs. Especially not with drugs used to treat atrial fibrillation or deep venous thrombosis, for example.)
When it comes to cervical cancer, just say no to the dangerous, needless and ineffective HPV vaccine. You have many safe options. Including the Pap smear. And now daily, low-dose aspirin. With aspirin, the science shows the benefits outweigh the risks with just moderate use. And moderate use keeps showing more and more benefits.
Source:
United States Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov)
“Aspirin and Acetaminophen Use and the Risk of Cervical Cancer,” Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease, 2015