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Diane Harper

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Diane Medved Harper
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Known forInvestigator for HPV vaccine clinical trials; later, commentator on HPV vaccine issues
Scientific career
FieldsVirology, vaccine development, cancer prevention
InstitutionsUniversity of Missouri
ThesisThe determination of diagnostic probabilities for human papillomavirus testing in the evaluation of an abnormal screening Papanicolaou smear (1995)

Diane Medved Harper, MD, MPH, MS,[1] is a professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City's department of Biomedical and Health Informatics since 2009. From 1996 to 2009 she held a post at Dartmouth University.[2] Her area of expertise is Human papillomavirus and the diseases associated with it, as well as colposcopy, and she was the principal investigator of the clinical trials of Gardasil and Cervarix, vaccines against HPV.[3] She has since made statements raising concerns about both vaccines, and she recommends that patients be more explicitly informed of the risks associated with them. She has also stated there is no data showing that Gardasil remains effective at preventing cervical cancer beyond five years.[4]

Education

A graduate of the University of Kansas (where she completed a residency in family medicine), Harper also completed undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in chemical engineering, her original choice of major, before attending Stanford University and Harvard University to receive her public health degree. Her decision to go to medical school instead of continuing to study engineering was made in 1981, when, on Thanksgiving Day, she called her dad and told him that her heart wasn't in engineering.[2] While at Stanford, she studied medical decision making and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Research

Harper has co-authored clinical trials of HPV vaccines in journals including the New England Journal of Medicine[5] and The Lancet Oncology.[6]

Opposition to Gardasil

Although, in 2008, she stated that Gardasil "is a good vaccine and...is generally safe,"[7] in recent years, mainly beginning in 2009, Harper has questioned the safety of Gardasil, and has appeared at conferences held by the National Vaccine Information Center, an antivaccination advocacy group, and has also appeared in The Greater Good.[8] As evidence that the vaccine may be unsafe, she points to research by Barbara Slade,[9] stating,

Gardasil has been associated with at least as many serious adverse events as there are deaths from cervical cancer developing each year. Indeed, the risks of vaccination are underreported in Slade's article, as they are based on a denominator of doses distributed from Merck's warehouse. Up to a third of those doses may be in refrigerators waiting to be dispensed as the autumn onslaught of vaccine messages is sent home to parents the first day of school. Should the denominator in Dr. Slade's work be adjusted to account for this, and then divided by three for the number of women who would receive all three doses, the incidence rate of serious adverse events increases up to five fold.[4]

In a December 2009 interview with the Huffington Post, Harper stated that pap smears alone prevent more cancer than vaccines alone.[3] She has also argued that HPV vaccination may be unnecessary because "Ninety-five percent of women who are infected with HPV never, ever get cervical cancer."[10] Harper has stated that she advocates personal choice and an individualized approach to HPV vaccination, saying that she provides "a balanced picture to my patients and their families and am not at all upset if they refuse the vaccine, especially at younger ages."[11] Harper has also stated that "more than 70 healthy young girls have died from a neurological reaction that occurred soon after getting Gardasil."[12]

Sunday Express

Harper's remarks about Cervarix were the subject of a story, published on October 4, 2009 in the Sunday Express,[13] which stated, "The cervical cancer vaccine may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent, a leading expert who developed the drug [Harper] has warned. She also claimed the jab would do nothing to reduce the rates of cervical cancer in the UK."[14] Ben Goldacre contacted Harper about this story, and she replied that she was misquoted, saying, “I did not say that Cervarix was as deadly as cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix could be riskier or more deadly than cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix was controversial, I stated that Cervarix is not a ‘controversial drug’. I did not ‘hit out’ – I was contacted by the press for facts. And this was not an exclusive interview.” She also noted that the story seemed to have mixed up Gardasil and Cervarix, which are, as she put it, "are not the same vaccines."[15] The Sunday Express would later issue a correction, in which they acknowledged that there is no evidence that Cervarix was ineffective, and that "Cervarix in fact provides protection against the viruses that cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers."[13]

Opinion paper

In 2009, Harper published an opinion piece in Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology regarding the potential risks of both Gardasil and Cervarix, and concluded that the benefits and risks of HPV vaccination must be weighed with the benefits and risks of HPV screening (Pap smears) to reduce cervical cancer in a cost-effective manner.[16] This paper was challenged by two scientists from Merck, who wrote, among other things, that it "contains inaccuracies and assumptions not supported by the currently available data" and that its methodology was flawed because "Efficacy estimates alone cannot be compared across studies and populations in order to infer differences in vaccine impact."[17]

References

  1. ^ "Diane Medved Harper". Second Opinion (TV series). Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  2. ^ a b Durgin, Jennifer (Fall 2006). "Dream Work: Diane Harper MD MPH". Dartmouth Medicine. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  3. ^ a b Yerman, Marcia (28 December 2009). "An Interview with Dr. Diane M. Harper, HPV Expert". Huffington Post. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  4. ^ a b Attkisson, Sharyl (29 August 2009). "Gardasil researcher speaks out". CBS News. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  5. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1056/NEJMoa061760, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1056/NEJMoa061760 instead.
  6. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(05)70101-7, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/S1470-2045(05)70101-7 instead.
  7. ^ Chustecka, Zosia (9 August 2008). "HPV Vaccine Deemed Safe and Effective, Despite Reports of Adverse Events". Medscape Today. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  8. ^ Gorski, David (18 November 2011). "Anti-vaccine propaganda lands in New York City this weekend". ScienceBlogs. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  9. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1001/jama.2009.1201., please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1001/jama.2009.1201. instead.
  10. ^ Knox, Richard (19 September 2011). "HPV Vaccine: The Science Behind the Controversy". NPR. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  11. ^ "HPV: A Complicated Vaccine". MDNews. 1 July 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
  12. ^ Rhodes, Maura (9 May 2013). "The HPV Vaccine: Risks vs. Rewards". Women's Health. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  13. ^ a b "Cervarix and Dr Diane Harper--correction". Sunday Express. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  14. ^ The original story has been removed from the Sunday Express's website, but a screenshot can be found here: Johnston, Lucy (4 October 2009). "Jab 'as deadly as the cancer'" (PDF). Sunday Express. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
  15. ^ Goldacre, Ben (10 October 2009). "Jabs "as bad as the cancer"". Bad Science. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
  16. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1097/GCO.0b013e328332c910, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1097/GCO.0b013e328332c910 instead.
  17. ^ Haupt, Richard; Sattler, Carlos. "Response to the Opinion Paper Authored by Dr Diane Harper" (PDF). Retrieved 10 August 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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