VAERS reports of death following vaccination with Gardasil

But first, a definition

"There were 68 confirmed deaths associated with the #HPV vaccine, #Gardasil, alone as of 2011. More in the last 2years. scribd.com/doc/127818325/Annals-of-Medicine-HPV-Vaccine"

Until recently, the CDC had a web page "Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination" which said

[Some reports] remain unconfirmed due to no identifiable patient information in the report such as a name and contact information to confirm the report. A death report is confirmed (verified) after a medical doctor reviews the report and any associated records. In the 34 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination.

The CDC has since stopped using the word "verified" with relation to VAERS reports on their HPV web page, possibly to avoid this ambiguity.

Retrieving Adverse Effects Reports

1. Visit vaers.hhs.gov
2. Click on "Search VAERS data"
3. Read the disclaimer that explains the limitations of the adverse affect reporting system, and how it can only show coincidence, not causation
4. Click "I have read and understand..." to proceed to the database
5. Click on the CDC WONDER link
6. In "1. Organize table layout", group results by VAERS ID, and check the optional measure "Adverse Event Description"
7. In "3. Select vaccine", select HPV4
8. In "4. Select event", select event category "Death".
9. Click 'Send'

Clicking on the link http://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX[]=HPV4&DIED=Yes&SUB_YEAR_HIGH=2013&SUB_MONTH_HIGH=9 will reproduce that search.

Summary

Of the remaining 86 death reports, 7 had causes that seemed certain to not be related to the vaccination.

Of the remaining 79 death reports, the causes of death were as follows:

• 34 Unknown
• 8 Suicide
• 8 Cardiac problems
• 6 Seizures
• 5 Death of child of vaccinee
• 3 Neurological problems
• 2 Diabetic Ketoacidosis
• 2 Leukemia
• 2 Pulmonary Embolism
• 2 Thrombosis
• 2 Viral infection
• 2 Other chronic illness
• 1 Asthma
• 1 Bacterial infection
• 1 Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Data

Suicide

ID	Location	Days aftr vaccination	Notes	Other medications	Pre-existing conditions
379874	foreign	44	suicide not_related
379876	foreign	186	suicide not_related unknown_date
389806	foreign		suicide unknown_date
393871	foreign	3	suicide		Depression
425513	us	2	suicide	ORTHO CYCLEN
437999	us	5	suicide	SEPTRA
457904	us	3	suicide
282372	foreign	0	autopsy unknown_date		Dental operation

Cardiac Problems

Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Viral Myocarditis

Seizures

Death of Child or Unborn Child of Vaccinated Mother

Neurological

Diabetic Ketoacidosis

Leukemia

Pulmonary Embolism

Thrombosis

Other chronic illness

Asthma

Bacterial Infection

Influenza

Disseminated Herpes Viral Disease

Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Early Onset Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Ovarian Cancer

Accidental Death

Ruptured Aneurysm

Unknown

Problematic Reports

VAERS reports can be submitted voluntarily by anyone, including healthcare providers, patients, or family members. Reports vary in quality and completeness. They often lack details and sometimes can have information that contains errors.

Likewise, indirect reports (where someone is reporting something they heard from someone else), and which lack detailed information, are likely to be duplicate or invalid. Both of these kinds of reports are considered hearsay, and should probably be considered invalid.

Here are the reports which appear to be hearsay:

ID	Location	Days aftr vaccination	Notes	Other medications	Pre-existing conditions
361121	foreign		radio unknown_date
374780	foreign		newspaper unknown_date
424378	foreign		website unknown_date
437971	foreign		website unknown_date
471789	foreign		radio spontaneous_report unknown_date
477609	foreign		spontaneous_report unknown_date
478227	foreign	6	spontaneous_report
479323	foreign		hearsay unknown_date
482106	foreign		social_media unknown_date
500640	foreign	31	autopsy spontaneous_report not_related unknown_date
502329	foreign	3	spontaneous_report
279592	unknown		heard_from unknown_date
280163	unknown	3	heard_from unknown_date
282747	unknown		unknown_date
318491	unknown		internet heard_from unknown_date
320559	unknown		heard_from unknown_date
350666	unknown		unknown_date
350967	unknown		internet unknown_date
361629	unknown		television hearsay unknown_date		unknown
373314	unknown		internet unknown_date
373315	unknown		hearsay internet unknown_date
383175	unknown		newspaper unknown_date
385303	unknown		heard_from
405381	foreign		unknown_date
405998	unknown		magazine cancer unknown_date
412247	unknown		forum unknown_date
412282	unknown		magazine unknown_date
413697	unknown		unknown_date
419237	unknown		website unknown_date
421582	unknown	0	unknown_date
425598	unknown		internet unknown_date
425680	unknown	0	internet unknown_date
464953	unknown		unknown_date
471590	unknown		radio spontaneous_report unknown_date
482344	unknown		spontaneous_report social_media unknown_date
482352	unknown		spontaneous_report social_media unknown_date
485188	unknown		internet spontaneous_report unknown_date
492468	unknown		spontaneous_report unknown_date
500225	unknown		spontaneous_report unknown_date
501081	unknown	3	spontaneous_report
293388	us	115	newspaper		Medical history and concomitant medications not reported; it was unknown if the patient was ill at time of vaccination.
344385	us		heard_from unknown_date
397437	us		heard_from unknown_date

Duplicates

Assessing Reporting Rates and Assigning Causality

"Causality assessment of adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)" found

"A stratified random sample of 100 VAERS reports received in 2004 contained 13 fatal cases, 19 cases with non-fatal disabilities, 39 other serious non-fatal cases and 29 non-serious cases. Experts knowledgeable about vaccines and clinical outcomes, reviewed each VAERS report and available medical records... In the end, only 3 (3%) of the AEFI were classified as definitely causally related to vaccine received."

"There were 32 VAERS reports of death following qHPV vaccination (Table 2). Eight of the reports were second-hand reports that could not be verified. Four were manufacturer reports with no identifying information for confirmation or medical review. Twenty of the reports (62.5%) could be verified through clinical review of medical records and autopsy reports. Of these cases, 14 (70%) were after qHPV alone. The other 6 cases reported qHPV as well as a variety of other vaccines. Nine cases occurred after dose 1, 5 after dose 2, and 6 after dose 3.

Mean age was 18 years (median, 17 years; range, 12-26 years). There was no clustering by age. The mean time from last qHPV immunization to AEFI onset was 39 days (median, 14.5 days; range, 2-288 days). The mean time from last qHPV immunization to death was 47 days (median, 14.5 days; range, 2 to 405 days).

Causes of death included 4 unexplained deaths, 2 cases of diabetic ketoacidosis (1 complicated by pulmonary embolism), 1 case related to prescription drug abuse, 1 case of juvenile amyotropic lateral sclerosis, 1 case of meningoencephalitis (Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B), 1 case of influenza B viral sepsis, 3 cases of pulmonary embolism (1 associated with hyperviscosity due to diabetic ketoacidosis), 6 cardiac-related deaths (4 arrhythmias and 2 cases of myocarditis), and 2 cases due to idiopathic seizure disorder.

The PRR for deaths in 6- to 17-yearolds was 1.4 (chi^2=0.42, P=.52). The PRR for deaths in 8- to 29-year-olds was 1.2 (chi^2=0.01, P=.92). Neither of these met the screening criteria for signal detection. "

See Also