Just wanted to say that I love your vigilance and deftness at setting the record straight. I thought about commenting publicly on this thread but didn't want to add fuel to the flame. But I changed my mind and decided that speaking up is necessary here. And I know that you are one person whose commitment to the truth does not require my endorsement or anyone else's either. Thanks for being the vocal man you are. Your contribution to OCF is so valuable and your willingness to enter the fray is much appreciated. It is essential for this community that information be factual and not opinion based. I empathize with anyone facing difficult decisions regarding healthcare choices. Most of us have been there countless times over the course of treatment. It is never easy. The decision comes down to the benefit outweighing the risk.

One more thing...the medical community is one big connected organism. Research is shared. It is in their best interest and ours to act on proven results.

My best to everyone facing tough medical decisions-
Anita

Thank you Anita for the public support. It's not like I demanded a public apology for misleading the OCF community.
Sometimes non lawyers have difficulty with the concept of negligence: where someone good does not mean to do something bad, but since they were so careless anyway in what they did, they are held liable even if they really meant well.
What amazes me is that all the information you would want or need about medical advances or HPV is handed on a silver platter to OCF members in the OCF news feed which vets articles. So it's not like posters who post google search results with no consideration of their validity are filling some void. Most offenders quit doing so only after I call them on it and ignore the polite posters. Look at all the nice hints Maria gave here that were just ignored in this thread. sometimes you have to spell it out.
thanks again

I have to chuckle here. Ana, about 4 years ago Charm and I were "introduced" to each other on these forums after a communication issue led to a duel of wits. The "discussion" got to a point where Brian had to shut the thread down, it really was comical in a cutting, sarcastic kind of way.

Last month I had the privilege of staying with Charm and his amazing wife while on a mission for OCF and it really was like meeting family. What I would say is that we are an "acquired taste" due to our delivery of viewpoints and information, but when you get to know us and understand where we are coming from we can be quite endearing even though we're A..holes.

Don't be afraid of getting into a deep discussion on these forums and giving as good as you get, the only thing we ask is for quality of information. What you'll find is once you get past the crusty exterior there really is a heart of gold there, even if its cloaked in sarcasm and a minor disregard for personal feelings.

Eric

I LOVE you guys!!!!!

The first forum I actually participated was a college admissions site when I was doing research for my son. It would get pretty heated when the discussion meandered into politics. Had to keep telling myself ... don't take it personally.

As someone who actually has HPV positive cancer : HPV16, this thread is addressed to me. So in summary of this thread: there is zero evidence that the HPV vaccine increase cancer in anyone who has HPV16 already. The only claims were made 5 years ago in an FDA petition that was exposed as false and statistics manipulated. Two courts agreed with the FDA that there was no such evidence, Unfortunately, some newspapers and internet columnists still report the unfounded allegations of 5 years ago but that's why you read the OCF news feed instead. So the good news is that if you are thinking of getting the vaccine for yourself or your child, there is no scientific or rational reason not to.

Charm

(OCF Note: There are some contraindications that impact a few individuals, so please discuss everything with your healthcare provider before being vaccinated.)

I would like to thank both KLO and Maria for all the backtracking to get the story right in this thread. You have done a great job of it. It is very important that we do not let misinformation live on the boards, that we correct it when it can be known for sure what the right information is, and absent of that ability we must delete the threads.

The OCF forum is Goggled ( like it or not) and our discussions here can live in the cyber world for a protracted period of time. We never want anything misleading, or grossly biased, to stay on these boards; living on to hurt someone or to alter their ability to make sound decisions.

Both of you allowed this thread to continue on to help others, by doing the hard work of digging out the right answers. I would like to thank you for your time to do so.

There is a great deal of bad information on the Internet since it is the unregulated wild west of biased misinformation, outright fraud, and hidden agendas to sell, or convince someone of something. When information is brought to the boards from this open source, we all need to be vigilant to see that those was are all trying to help have it sifted for accuracy and vetted properly. MANY will come here and be offended by being challenged as they bring with them bias from the passionate and sometimes very convincing stories and bloggers they find in cyberspace. While we need to be civil, standing for what is correct is never wrong. Hopefully, people will appreciate the effort, though some will just move on to another venue where urban myth can thrive and their perspectives can remain unchallenged.

I have said many times that these OCF boards are NOT a democracy. But in order for them to function properly it takes people like the two of you to sometimes do the heavy lifting of finding the facts.

It is good to have information and not just from the manufacturers of a drug. I like the official government information based on scientific facts. Here is the Center for Disease Control take on the safety of Garisil as of 2012
CDC : HPV vaccine safe and effective
Especially important is this excerpt
[quote]Have FDA and CDC changed their recommendations for the use of the HPV vaccine based on their vaccine safety monitoring?

While no vaccine or medicine is completely without risk, CDC and FDA have reviewed all of the safety information available to them on Cervarix and Gardasil. Based on this, CDC and FDA have determined that Gardasil is safe to use and effective in preventing 4 types of HPV.

CDC continues to recommend the vaccination of 11 and 12 year old girls with 3 doses of vaccine to prevent the types of HPV that most commonly cause cervical cancer and genital warts. The vaccine is also recommended for girls and women ages 13 through 26 who did not get any or all of the doses when they were younger.

Additionally, Gardasil protects males against most genital warts. This vaccine is available for boys and men, 9 through 26 years of age.
[/quote]

While we all can have our opinions, it's good to have facts
Charm

Rather than OCF or posters putting out all the contraindications for this vaccine or any other drug, I am just going to say, that the decision to vaccinate or not should be made IN CONJUNCTION WITH AN INFORMED DISCUSSION WITH YOUR DOCTOR AND CARE PROVIDERS. We have already stated that it is approved for boys via the CDC, and that none of the adverse events that have occurred related to this vaccine can be directly tied to the injection, and do not occur at rates higher than in any non vaccinated population. I do not wish the OCF boards to degrade into a discussion of the pros and cons of an given drug let alone this vaccine. They all have potential downsides. To have non science people debating what is on the adverse events list or in the FDA events reporting system, only fosters misinformation. This may not be poster's intent, but it is the ultimate outcome.

These boards were not designed for this, they were designed to help people in the battle of dealing with the disease. Issues related to prevention are part of OCF's mission, but that work is taking place outside the discussion forums. As we have news or outcomes like our successful dialog with the CDC last October that allowed boys to be vaccinated and pediatricians to talk about oral cancers, we will post about it on the web site and in our Facebook pages.

These last two vaccine threads have taken too much time to moderate, (I have gotten over 20 PM's related to them which all require long answers) and I cannot be in the middle of a discussion about something that the answers for are not completely available (or known) yet, nor explain to people that do not understand the workings of the drug and vaccine approval system in the US, why the situation is the way that it is. We allow some discussion of it here in general, but overall, to dissect the adverse reaction list in detail and more is beyond the purpose of these forums, and takes the discussions and the moderator admins time away from helping people that are in the middle of their battle right now.

If you do not understand the vaccine issue, PLEASE DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR DOCTORS. We are all not doctors, but survivors with varying degrees of information about all this. The answers that you get here may not apply to you, and may not offer you a complete picture of your individual situation as it relates to this vaccine or any drug in particular. They may be given by a person that is repeating information from a source outside of OCF that we cannot control the accuracy of.

OCF is a proponent of vaccination against HPV16. Having said that, while we are talking to and working at the NCI/NIH/CDC to further the knowledge of things, only recently have any of the oversight and pubic health agencies taken positions that allow boys to be vaccinated, and consider doing a head and neck based clinical trial. To let this discussion here continue in a manner that does not include all the science, express the completeness of the issues with the CDC, the FDA, or with various other entities, in the end does not put useable information in anyone's hands if it does not come from these sources.