Drug Dangers
HPV Vaccine Blamed for Teen’s Paralysis
Thursday, September 25th, 2008A month after 13 year old Jenny Tetlock was vaccinated against the HPV virus, she missed the lowest hurdle in gym class. It was the first sign of a degenerative muscle disease that 15 months later left her nearly completely paralyzed.
Her father, Philip Tetlock, a professor at UC-Berkeley, has embarked on an odyssey to find out whether the vaccine, Gardasil, is to blame.
Tetlock is not the only one concerned. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch has been periodically obtaining adverse event reports on Gardasil from the FDA. 10 deaths have been linked to Gardasil since September 2007, and there have been 140 reports so far this year of serious side effects such as miscarriage and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Adverse drug reactions rise sharply
Thursday, September 25th, 2008The number nearly triples since the FDA began a new reporting system in 1998. The main culprits are painkillers.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 11, 2007
The number of serious adverse events and deaths attributed to prescription medications has nearly tripled since the Food and Drug Administration initiated a system in 1998 to make it easier to report significant side effects, researchers said Monday.
Twenty percent of drugs accounted for 87% of adverse effects, and the biggest offenders were painkillers and drugs that modify the immune system to treat arthritis, according to the report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
