Naturopathic Source

The other day Christiane Northrup, MD, was on the Oprah show. For those of you who don't know of Dr. Northrup, she is an ob/gyn in the US. She has written several very good books about women's health and talks a lot about nutrition, lifestyle and alternative health. Her website is http://www.drnorthrup.com.

Back to my original point...A women asked what she thought about the HPV vaccine and here is what she said:

"That vaccine is of great interest to me because there are over 100 HPV types and this vaccine only targets 4 of them and although they are associated, they are associated, with cervical cancer, nobody has ever proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that HPV is the cause of cervical cancer. HPV - Human Papilloma Virus. It's a venereal wart virus. But this vaccine came out to protect women against certain strains of HPV that are associated with cervical cancer. Here's the deal: only about 3,500 women die per year from cervical cancer and the number decreases every year. So we're doing very well with PAP smears and other screening tests. So you should keep having those. And, I'm very concerned vaccinating girls 9 and over, every single one of them, with two vaccines. There have been some deaths from the vaccine and I'm a little against my own profession. My own profession feels everyone should be vaccinated. But I think the money could be better spent elsewhere, because here's the deal: you see HPV associated with abnormal PAP smears in women who are on immunosuppressant drugs -- who have had kidney transplants or who have HIV disease. So it seems that virus is associated with cancer in those whose immune system is already depressed. So it's like a marker for a depressed immune system. Where I'd put my money is getting everybody on a dietary program that would enhance their immunity and then they would be able to resist that sort of thing." -- Christiane Northrup on the Oprah show (first aired Jan 17, 2008)

TC