CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES, February 16, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Vaccine lawyers from Wisner Baum filed two new wrongful death lawsuits today, on behalf of a North Carolina mother who alleges Merck’s Gardasil human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine killed her 10-year-old daughter, and on behalf of a Pennsylvania mother who alleges Gardasil caused the death of her 14-year-old daughter. Both mothers contend the HPV vaccine caused serious autoimmune and neurological dysfunction, ultimately resulting in the deaths of their daughters.

Gardasil lawsuit attorneys Monique Alarcon, Bijan Esfandiari, Michael L. Baum, and Stephanie B. Sherman, filed the complaints for wrongful death in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina (Case No 3:22-md-03036-KDB). The cases will become part of the Gardasil multidistrict litigation (In Re: Gardasil Products Liability Litigation, MDL 3036), where over 150 similar cases are pending.

The attorneys represent Kristine Zuggi, whose daughter, Isabella, a healthy fifth-grader, died just ten weeks after receiving the Gardasil vaccine, and Lynne Guzman, whose 12-year-old daughter Sydney Figueroa was confined to a wheelchair after receiving the vaccine, and died soon after.

The lawsuits are against Gardasil’s manufacturer, New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Inc. and its subsidiary, Merck Sharp & Dohme. The allegations include:

Merck regularly risks lives with full knowledge of Gardasil’s limited efficacy and severe dangers.

Merck knowingly fails to warn the public and medical providers about the risk of injury or death.

Merck has engaged in a relentless propaganda campaign to frighten and guilt parents into inoculating their children with Gardasil.

Merck knowingly created a substantial risk of harm to children and patients injected with Gardasil and therefore an award of punitive damages is warranted.

“The senseless deaths of these two beautiful young girls brings home the seriousness of the allegations against Merck in these cases–that the company has exaggerated the benefits of Gardasil as cancer preventative and ignored the risks, including death–all for the sake of the company’s bottom line” said Wisner Baum attorney, Monique Alarcon.

Isabella Zuggi, a happy, healthy 10-year-old who loved reading Harry Potter books, had no major health issues when she received her first and only Gardasil injection on August 26, 2022. Two weeks after the shot, Isabella developed headaches, lethargy, stomach pains, body aches, and intermittent fevers. An infectious disease consult found that Isabella had myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibodies. MOG antibody disorders are acute, inflammatory, demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system. According to the complaint, MOG antibody–related autoimmunity has been reported after several vaccines, including Gardasil. According to studies, the Gardasil vaccine is “among the most commonly reported vaccinations linked to central nervous system demyelination.” Research has repeatedly linked Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis with the HPV vaccination.

Isabella died on November 5, 2022. The cause of death was listed as Acute Encephalitis Associated with Anti-MOG Antibody Production. Isabella’s mother Kristine said that, if she had been made aware that Gardasil had the potential to hurt her child, she would not have given consent for Isabella to receive the vaccine. Zuggi said Merck’s scare tactics made her feel like she had to vaccinate her daughter to protect her from cervical cancer.

Sydney Figueroa was 11 years old when she received her first dose of Gardasil on December 6, 2017, and 12 years old when she received her second. Before the vaccine, Sydney was advanced both academically and athletically. She played soccer and was very involved in school activities, on the track team and band. After the vaccinations, Sydney experienced headaches, brain fog, fatigue, dizziness, rapid heart rate, exhaustion, leg pain, ringing in the ears, light sensitivity, vision issues, respiratory complications, muscle weakness, involuntary movements of her neck, head, legs, and arms, inability to walk normally, frequent stumbling, inability to swallow that ultimately required a feeding tube, and excruciating nerve pain.

Sydney was confined to a wheelchair and required full time care. She was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Tourette’s Syndrome, and Functional Neurological Disorder. She died on June 2, 2021 from a pulmonary embolism directly attributable to prolonged immobility because of her autoimmune diseases triggered by Gardasil.

Sydney’s wrongful death complaint alleges that Julie Gerberding, then the Director of CDC, “obligingly ushered the Gardasil vaccine through CDC’s regulatory process, manifestly ignoring clear evidence that Gardasil’s efficacy was unproven, and that the vaccine was potentially dangerous.”

Sydney’s mother, Lynne, said, “Gardasil destroyed my daughter’s life. She fought for as long as she could but the injuries she suffered, ultimately, killed her. If I knew what I know now, I never would have let Sydney get the shots.”

The complaint further alleges that there are no studies proving that Gardasil prevents cancer, and adds that “because it can take decades for a persistent HPV infection to proceed to development of cervical or anal cancer, and because cervical and anal cancers are so rare, a true efficacy study would require decades and likely hundreds of thousand – if not millions – of trial participants,” a trial which Merck did not want to invest the time or money to perform.

“My daughter could light up a room with her wonderful sense of humor and her loving, creative spirit,” says Kristine Zuggi. “But that light started to dim from the moment she received the Gardasil injection. No one told me that the pain and suffering Izzy endured before she died was possible. But I am here to tell you that it is possible, and it’s shameful that a mother who lost her daughter has to warn people about the dangers of this vaccine, while the company that makes it is trying to keep those dangers a secret.”

HPV Vaccine Lawsuit Allegations Against Merck

Lawsuits against Merck include the following causes of action:

1) Negligence

2) Gross Negligence

3) Failure to Warn

4) Manufacturing Defect

5) Breach of Warranty

6) Common Law Fraud

7) Wrongful Death and Survival

Merck has a long history of bringing controversial products to market, including its infamous Vioxx, a pain medication the company had to pull from the market due to cardiovascular risks. Tens of thousands of Vioxx users filed lawsuits against Merck alleging they suffered heart attacks and other cardiovascular injuries.

The litigation revealed that Merck knew early on that Vioxx was linked to fatal cardiovascular adverse events, but intentionally chose to conceal the risks from the public and medical community, and blacklisted medical professionals who dared to publicly criticize Vioxx’s safety.

Merck paid nearly $5 billion to settle the tens of thousands of Vioxx personal injury actions, and an additional $1 billion to settle a securities class action. The company was also forced to pay $950 million in both civil and criminal fines to the Department of Justice and other governmental entities as a result of false statements Merck made about Vioxx’s cardiovascular safety and its illegal off-label marketing of the drug.

Attorneys in the Gardasil litigation allege Merck has engaged in similar corporate malfeasance with its HPV vaccine.

According to Merck’s marketing, Gardasil provides lifetime immunity to cervical and other HPV-associated cancers. Plaintiffs in the Gardasil litigation, however, say Merck’s marketing claim that Gardasil prevents cancer (not to mention lifetime immunity), is unproven. The allegations state that Gardasil may actually be more likely to cause cancer in those previously exposed to HPV than prevent it.

Lawsuits allege that Merck knows and actively conceals the fact that Gardasil can cause a constellation of serious adverse reactions and side effects. According to the complaints, Gardasil contains numerous hazardous ingredients, including at least one ingredient that Merck failed to disclose to regulators and the public. Studies have shown that one of Gardasil’s ingredients, Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS) binds to non-vaccine proteins, triggering autoimmune disorders and other serious conditions.

Plaintiffs say Merck, in designing its clinical trials for Gardasil, concealed the risks to falsely enhance the vaccine’s safety profile, just as the company did years prior with Vioxx. In order to obtain its Gardasil license, Merck conducted its clinical trial studies to purposefully conceal evidence of chronic conditions such as autoimmune diseases while exaggerating the vaccine’s purported efficacy, the lawsuits allege. This “wholesale fraud” and dishonesty in the clinical tests led many physicians to recommend the vaccination under false assumptions, attorneys say.

Until 2021, Gardasil had more reported adverse events than any other vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had received more than 64,000 HPV vaccine adverse event reports by December 2019. It’s not surprising then that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has paid out tens of millions of dollars in damages for injuries and deaths.

“As a result of Merck’s fraud, Gardasil is wreaking havoc on a substantial swath of an entire generation of children and young adults on a worldwide scale,” the Gardasil lawsuits allege.

The award-winning law firm of Wisner Baum has successfully litigated cases against many of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Since 1985, the firm has earned a reputation for breaking new legal ground, holding corporations accountable, influencing public policy, and raising public awareness on important safety issues. Using its longstanding tradition of success in the courtroom, the firm always strives to shine a spotlight on unsafe products or harmful practices to protect consumers from dangerous products. Across all areas of practice, the firm has won more than $4 billion in settlements and verdicts.

Wisner Baum wishes to stress that the firm is not against vaccines. Vaccines have the potential to eradicate disease and save millions of lives. The firm is, however, against intentional efforts to mislead consumers about the safety and effectiveness of a drug or vaccine. Wisner Baum attorneys have always fought—and will continue to fight—for the rights of consumers to be fully and honestly informed about risks associated with any drug, vaccine, or medical device. The firm will work tirelessly to ensure those rights are defended and victims of injustice are compensated for their injuries.

L.J. Williamson
Newsroom PR
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