In keeping with the fearmongering, science-denying tone of his website’s so-called reporting, Joseph Farah’s Oct. 27 WorldNetDaily column is all about attacking Gardasil.
Farah complains that GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann “in the unfavorable light of the anti-science zealot” for raising questions about Gardasil. He then joins Bachmann in anti-science zealot land by repeating unverified claims of “adverse reactions” to the vaccine and asserting that “no one is even sure whether the drug, peddled by Merck, is even effective at preventing HPV and, thus, reducing cervical cancer.”
Later, Farah asserted again that “some doctors have even challenge the link between HPV and cervical cancer.” But the only doctor WND has cited as making that claim is Christian Fiala, whom anti-abortion websites have denounced as “Austria’s most notorious abortionist,” which makes WND’s embrace of him rather curious.
Farah also takes a unrealistic view of adolescence by claiming, “HPV, like all other sexually transmitted diseases, can be prevented 100 percent of the time simply through abstinence from promiscuous sex by teenage girls.” That fixation on female behavior — Farah makes no mention of the role teenage boys play in spreading HPV — is reminiscent of WND’s obsession with female teachers who have sex with their students, which similarly ignores the behavior of male teachers.