One step at a time-A story of a vaccine injured teenager

[link to www.chillicothenews.com]

When Cassie Summers began her freshman year at Chillicothe High School last fall she couldn’t wait to get involved in all school had to offer: Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Drama Club, FFA, the A-Plus. She even tried to join the Spanish Club (although she wasn’t in the Spanish class). She ran track and was on the volleyball team until she injured her ankle.

Cassie was used to spending her free time much in the same ways as any typical 15-year-old girl. She enjoyed hanging out with friends, shopping, texting, being on the computer and watching movies. Her high school career would seemingly be off to a great start. But, her body wasn’t.

The nosebleeds, which had started earlier in the calendar year, by fall had become a daily occurrence. So were the headaches. And fatigue. As time went on, her maladies multiplied and intensified. Her headaches were so extreme she’d cry out in pain.

Just a few weeks into school, Cassie began developing flu-like symptoms. So, in addition to the nosebleeds, headaches, and fatigue, Cassie was running a fever.

One night she awoke with such abdominal pain that she was taken to the local hospital emergency room. She was admitted and diagnosed with pneumonia and cysts on both of her ovaries. After four days in the hospital, she was sent home with instructions to call the doctor if the pain got worse. She returned the next day claiming that the pain was completely out of control. She had the cysts aspirated.

After the procedure, Cassie returned home expecting to make a full recovery. Yet, after two weeks and despite popping pain medication every four to six hours, Cassie still suffered. Her parents, Kim and Randy Summers, knew something more serious was brewing.

Doctors determined that Cassie’s affliction was not a gynecological issue and were unable to determine the cause of the pain. They recommended an appointment with Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. However, her earliest appointment was a month away. After two weeks, Cassie’s condition worsened. Not only was she still having headaches, nosebleeds, extreme fatigue and pain, she began running a fever, was unable to eat, was nauseous and vomiting.
On October 14, she was admitted through the emergency room at Children’s Mercy. Multiple tests were run. Her list of ailments multiplied: pancreatitis, gastrointestinal disorders, gastroenteritis, and pneumonia. She became hypersensitive to light and sound, had blurred vision and double vision. She couldn’t eat and was placed on IVs.

Meanwhile, Cassie’s parents searched for clues to help identify what was happening to their daughter.

“After five weeks in Children’s Mercy we still had no answers as to why this was happening,” Kim Summers said of her once active child. “The doctors all agreed that these weren’t isolated ailments; that somehow they were all connected and being caused by the same thing; however, they didn’t know what that one thing was.”

It was during this time that Kim began feeling strongly that it was because of a series of vaccines which Cassie had received shortly before her first symptoms emerged. Her first vaccine was in December 2007; the second in March 2008; and the third in June 2008.

“I had asked the different doctors from the beginning if this could be caused by the vaccine and was told over and over, “No,” that it had been tested and was safe.”

Still, Kim had doubts. Her doubts were reinforced when a family member who works with insurance companies kept hearing about girls getting sick after they had received the Gardasil vaccine — the same vaccine which Cassie had received along with the normal booster shots and the meningitis vaccine. And, these girls were experiencing symptoms similar to Cassie’s.
“I knew with all my heart from that moment on what the cause was,” Kim said. “I just couldn’t get a doctor to listen to me.”

After five weeks, Cassie was still not better and the doctors didn’t know what else to do. In mid-November Cassie was flown to the children’s hospital in St. Louis. Her health was deteriorating. Neurological problems developed. Her left eye became droopy and non-reactive to light. The reflexes in her legs were abnormal. She started lactating.

Doctors thought Cassie may have had a brain tumor, but the MRI came back normal. No tumor. But, still no answers.

On December 3, still being fed intravenously, Cassie was dismissed. Kim took classes to learn how to take care of Cassie’s IV and how to administer her nutrients. Cassie was on five nausea medicines, a pain medicine and underwent physical therapy. When she became unable to take the medicines orally Kim learned how to administer them intravenously.

Three days before Christmas, Cassie began experiencing seizure-like activity. Again, she made another trip to Children’s Mercy in Kansas City. Still, no answers.

“Every time I could get my hands on a computer I was looking up things about Gardasil and the side effects that went along with it... all of which Cassie was experiencing,” Kim said.

Merck, which manufactures Gardasil, states on its website that the most common side affects from Gardasil are headaches, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and fainting. The website states that health care professionals should be notified if the vaccine recipient experiences difficulty breathing, wheezing, hives and rash as such symptoms could be sings of an allergic reaction. The website also states that health care professionals should be contacted if the recipient has swollen glands, joint pain, unusual tiredness or weakness, leg pain, shortness of breath, aching muscles, muscle weakness, seizure and bad stomach ache.

Through her research into the alleged side effects of Gardasil — mostly through Internet web sites — Kim learned that some girls were going through de-tox treatments and were having good results. On Christmas Eve, Kim drove Cassie to Iowa for her first de-tox treatment.
Kim believed that it was the amount of aluminum in the vaccine which was making some young girls sick.

“It is like any other kind of allergy,” she said. “Some people are allergic to peanut butter, some are not.”

After two weeks of treatment, three days a week, Kim was told that Cassie had to stop her detox treatment.

“Her condition was too serious and her body could not handle de-tox at that time,” she said.
Cassie returned home.

The new year started and so did new symptoms.

On January 5, Cassie began complaining about the numbness and tingling in her legs getting worse. At times her legs would just give out. Soon thereafter, she began having trouble breathing. Within two weeks, she couldn’t feel her legs at all. Cassie’s blood pressure was low and her heart rate high.

Her family physician had been trying get Cassie into the Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical practice dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of virtually every type of complex illness, in Rochester, Minnesota. The soonest, though, that she could get in was April 13.

“I sat in the kitchen and cried,” Kim recalls. “My daughter was so sick and now was unable to walk and they are telling me I have to wait until April.”

As her daughter’s health continued to slip, Kim searched for help.

On January 19, Cassie was admitted to the University Hospital in Columbia. Two weeks later she was discharged from the hospital and admitted into Rusk Rehabilitation Center in Columbia. For the next three weeks, she underwent physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy — all in an effort to restore her to the way she was before she got sick.

While progress was painstakingly slow, Cassie improved enough so that she was able to leave. She returned home last week.

Cassie is continuing with regular therapy three days a week and she struggles with her memory and cognitive skills. She is starting to bear weight on her legs, but her physical strength remains weak as she relies on forearm crutches to walk even short distances. For longer distances, she uses a wheelchair.

With encouragement from her family, Cassie tried returning to school Monday after having been absent for several months. The plan was for her to attend three half-days a week and focus on her core subjects. However, after just an hour, she needed to return home for bed rest.

Cassie’s future remains uncertain and doctors are unsure as to whether Cassie will make a full recovery.

Meanwhile, Kim is doing what she can to make people aware of what she believes are possible side effects of the Gardasil vaccine. She is convinced that Cassie’s illnesses came from Gardasil, a vaccine approved for use in 2006 to help protect young women from developing cervical cancer.

Gardasil is promoted by Merck as the only cervical cancer vaccine that helps protect against four types of human papillomavirus. The company maintains that the vaccine is safe and effective. And, that belief is supported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the safety of the Gardasil vaccine was studied in seven clinical trials before it was licensed. There were more than 21,000 girls and women ages 9 through 26 in these clinical trials. Since it was licensed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the Food and Drug Administration have been closely monitoring the safety of the Gardasil vaccine, according to CDC.

There are three systems used to monitor the safety of vaccines after they are licensed and being used in the United States. These systems — such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — can monitor side effects already known to be caused by vaccines as well as detect rare side effects that were not identified during a vaccine’s clinical trials.

As of December 31, 2008, more than 23 million doses of Gardasil were distributed in the United States, according to the CDC. As of that date, there were 11,916 VAERS reports of adverse events following Gardasil vaccination in the United States. Of these reports, 94 percent were reports of events considered to be non-serious, and 6 percent were reports of events considered to be serious.

The CDC says that mild to moderate adverse events included pain at the injection site, headache, nausea, and fever. Reports of people fainting have also been received.

The CDC says that serious adverse events reported include Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which is a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness. CDC, however, claims there is no evidence that Gardasil has increased the rate of GBS above that expected in the population. People have also reported blood clots having occurred in the heart, lungs, and legs; however, CDC says most of these people had a risk of getting blood clots, such as taking oral contraceptives.

There have been 32 U.S. deaths reported to VAERS as of Dec. 31, 2008; however, CDC says that each of these deaths has been reviewed and “there was not a common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine.”

“Based on all of the information we have today, CDC and FDA have determined that Gardasil is safe to use and effective in preventing four types of HPV,” the CDC website states. “As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of Gardasil. Any problems detected with this vaccine will be reported to health officials, healthcare providers, and the public, and needed action will be taken to ensure the public's health and safety.”

Following an inquiry made to the vaccine maker, Merck issued the following statement:
“It’s important to remember that the proven benefit of Gardasil is that it helps prevent cervical cancer caused by the two virus types responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Nothing is more important to Merck than the safety of our products and we carefully monitor the safety of Gardasil on a routine basis. Experts at the FDA and CDC also continue to review data and, as recently as four months ago, said “Gardasil continues to be safe and effective, and its benefits continue to outweigh its risks.”

Cynthia Janak, who identifies herself as an independent research journalist, disagrees.
She manages a website which focuses on the use of vaccines and told the Constitution-Tribune that she gets between one and three new e-mails a day from people worldwide searching for answers after they or family members have become ill following the Gardasil vaccine. That’s how Kim became familiar with Janak.

Janak is generally opposed to the use of most vaccines because of what she claims are potential side effects but she is especially critical of Gardasil.

“It is the worst vaccine ever allowed,” Janak alleged. “In all of my research I have found that the Gardasil vaccine was not tested long enough. The side effects are horrendous and we don’t know what the long-term effects are.”

She added that one of the ingredients in the vaccine was not tested in the proper environment.
“I cannot recommend any vaccine except for polio and, maybe, measles,” Janak said.

Cassie has never been known to have any kind of allergies nor has she experienced adverse effects from any other vaccine.

Both Kim and her sister needed hysterectomies as adults so when Kim heard about cancer preventative Gardasil she thought she could protect Cassie from problems similar to what she and her sister had experienced. Kim says that had she known about what she believes are the true side effects of the vaccine, she would never have had Cassie take it.

Some doctors say they have no idea what has caused Cassie’s condition and have declared her a medical mystery while others, Kim says, have been open to the possibility that the vaccine caused her illnesses; however, she says that they will not make a formal diagnosis because there are no tests available to confirm that.

“Some of the conditions she has been diagnosed with should have resolved with treatment and medicines and hers has not which tells them that these things are all being caused by the same thing and each symptom is not separate but all connected to one thing — Gardasil,” Kim alleges.
Most young women who receive the vaccine have no adverse side effects; but some do, Gardasil opponents claim.

“It is no coincidence that thousands of girls exactly like Cassie — all perfectly healthy active teenagers — are now chronically ill all suffering from the same things with the one common denominator being that they all received the Gardasil vaccine,” Kim said.

Cyrsten Lollar, also of Chillicothe, is someone else who became ill shortly after receiving the Gardasil vaccine, according to her mother, LaRenda Lollar.

The once-active 14-year-old girl is now reduced to attending class three half-days a week because she lacks the strength to maintain a normal class schedule. But, this is a big step compared to a month ago as she missed all but two-days worth of classes in January.

Cyrsten, an eighth-grader, received her first Gardasil shot in October 2008. She received the shot along with the regular booster shots. Within three days of receiving the shot, she experienced severe abdominal pains, her mother said. The pains went away a couple of weeks later. On December 18, she had her second shot. Again, a few days later, she began experiencing extreme abdominal pain.

Ten days after her second shot, Cyrsten was in the emergency room experiencing intense abdominal pain. The pains are continuing as is extreme fatigue, her mother says.

LaRenda says her daughter is tough, noting that she manages pain well. She has two big brothers and has been stepped on by steers and heifers in the course of caring for and showing livestock.

“For her to complain is not normal,” LaRenda said.

“This is a kid always on the go,” she added. “To watch her give those things up is difficult.”

LaRenda is treating Cyrsten with an arsenal of natural herbs and supplements and Cyrsten is developing biofeedback skills for pain management.

LaRenda said that Cyrsten is better than she was six weeks ago but has not experienced much change during the last couple of weeks. Her goals for getting better is to be able to walk down the aisle at her brother’s wedding this summer and to be able to show pigs at the county fair.
Similar to Cassie, Cyrsten underwent a battery of tests, all coming back inconclusive. She is now awaiting results of the latest test.

“We truly feel very fortunate that she only got two of the three shots,” LaRenda said. “Otherwise, we think her condition would be more severe.”

Prior to Cassie’s illness, Kim owned and operated Fringes Salon & Spa and has for seven years; however, she has been unable to work since Cassie’s health began deteriorating. Randy has worked at the Donaldson Company for the past 11 years and was laid off about a week ago. The couple has another daughter, Sydney, 11.