Before Gardasil, Victoria was a happy, healthy, athletic teenager who earned straight A’s. Her injuries forced her to drop out of school and give up her dreams.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK)

LOS ANGLES, CA, UNITED STATES, July 28, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Gardasil injury lawyers from the national law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman filed a personal injury lawsuit on behalf of Victoria Trevisan, a Los Angeles area woman who developed Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and a myriad of other debilitating injuries after receiving the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

Baum Hedlund attorneys Bijan Esfandiary, Michael L. Baum, Stephanie B. Sherman, and Monique Alarcon, along with co-counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., filed the Gardasil lawsuit in California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles (case no. 22STCV24209) against New Jersey-based Merck & Co., Inc. and subsidiary Merck Sharp & Dohme. Trevisan and her attorneys say Merck’s conduct, including its false promotion of Gardasil and its failure to issue appropriate warnings concerning the severe risks of Gardasil, created a substantial risk of significant harm to children and patients. The lawsuit further alleges Merck’s conduct warrants punitive damages.

“Should Merck be trusted on Gardasil after causing one of the worst drug recalls in history with Vioxx, not to mention Fosamax and NuvaRing? Our evidence says no, they shouldn’t be trusted on Gardasil either,” says Baum Hedlund attorney and shareholder Stephanie B. Sherman. “Victoria’s life and so many others will never be the same because of Gardasil, and Merck needs to take responsibility for that.”

Victoria Trevisan received the first dose of the Gardasil vaccine in December of 2015 at the age of 13. Her mother consented to allow her daughter to receive the HPV vaccine after being told that Gardasil is very safe, that Gardasil prevents cancer and that teenagers must get the Gardasil vaccine.

Before Gardasil, Victoria was a happy, healthy teenager who earned straight A’s in school. She was a student-athlete involved in ice skating and was a starter on her club soccer team. Victoria dreamed of earning a soccer scholarship to play at the college level.

Victoria received the second and third doses of Gardasil in February of 2016 and July of 2016. Immediately following her third Gardasil shot, Victoria fainted and hit her head on the window in the examination room at her doctor’s office. Two days later, she reported to an allergist that she became severely short of breath after five minutes of a soccer game and had to stop playing.

In August of 2016, Victoria went to a cardiologist to evaluate her symptoms, which included dizziness, dyspnea (shortness of breath) with exertions, chest pains, blurry vision, nasal congestion, headaches, memory loss, and insomnia. She was also experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms, including nausea, abdominal distention, and decreased appetite.

Over the next few months, Victoria went to multiple doctors and specialists to treat the following symptoms:

• Abdominal pain and nausea
• Anxiety
• Body pains
• Brain fog
• Chest pains
• Cognitive impairment
• Cold intolerance
• Constipation
• Decreased appetite and early satiety
• Depression
• Frequent headaches
• Hives and frequent allergies
• Insomnia
• Lightheadedness
• Palpitations
• Panic attacks
• Phonophobia
• Photophobia
• Severe fatigue
• Skin flushing
• Sleep paralysis
• Syncope (fainting)
• Weakness

Due to her post-Gardasil symptoms, Victoria has been unable to engage in the normal activities that a teenager and young adult would enjoy. She was forced to drop out of high school to complete her schooling at home. She also had to give up her dreams of a career working in the field of forensic science due to her fatigue and other debilitating symptoms. At 20 years old, she is not able to work a normal job and relies on her parents for financial support.

Doctors have diagnosed Victoria with the following serious health issues, which she alleges are HPV vaccine side effects:

• Chronic fatigue
• Fibromyalgia
• Generalized anxiety
• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
• Major depressive disorder
• Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS)
• Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)
• Ulcerative colitis

Victoria received all of her childhood shots but says that if she had known about Gardasil’s potential side effects before receiving the shot, she never would have consented to the HPV vaccine. She is pursuing this claim because she wants other people to learn about her life after Gardasil so they can make informed decisions about their health.

“I just want people to know that this happened to me, and it can happen to anyone,” Victoria says. “It is important for me to share my story to help make sure others understand that there are risks. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since I received the Gardasil vaccine that it hasn’t affected me. I don’t want this pain for other kids.”

HPV Vaccine Lawsuit Allegations Against Merck

Lawsuits against Merck include the following causes of action:

1) Negligence
2) Breach of Implied Warranty (Failure to Warn)
3) Breach of Implied Warranty (Manufacturing Defect)
4) Breach of Express Warranty
5) Common Law Fraud

Merck has a long history of bringing controversial products to market, including Fosamax (a purported bone density drug that caused bone fractures) and Nuvaring (a birth control device associated with life-threatening blood clots and death).

Merck’s most scandalous drug was Vioxx, a pain medication the company had to pull from the market due to cardiovascular risks. Tens of thousands of patients filed lawsuits against Merck alleging they suffered heart attacks and other cardiovascular injuries as a result of ingesting the medication.

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. Lawsuits accused Merck of orchestrating a scheme to downplay the severity of the risks, misrepresenting the results of its clinical trials, failing to undertake the clinical trials that would reveal risks, and blacklisting medical professionals who dared to publicly criticize the safety of Vioxx.

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 civil and criminal fines to the Department of Justice and other governmental entities as a result of various criminal activities Merck had engaged in with respect to Vioxx.

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, including autoimmune diseases, and death in some recipients. 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 and conducting 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 designed 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.

By December 2019, 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 that time. It’s not surprising then that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has paid out 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.

About Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman

The award-winning law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman has successfully litigated cases against many of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Established in 1973, 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.

Baum Hedlund 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. Baum Hedlund 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.

Robin McCall
Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, PC
+ +1 3102073233
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