Newly declassified court documents reveal that Merck ignored internal warnings that its HPV vaccine, Gardasil, could cause autoimmune disorders in young women.
The report—part of the record in the ongoing Robi v Merck case—details how Dr Jesper Mehlsen, a Danish physician and former Merck trial investigator, alerted the company to signs of autonomic dysfunction following vaccination.
According to Mehlsen, those warnings were “discarded.”
He alleges that Merck blocked adverse event reports, misled regulators, and downplayed real-world injury signals—including evidence of elevated autoantibodies in hundreds of young women.
Mehlsen’s report details clinical evidence suggesting that Gardasil can trigger serious autoimmune reactions in a genetically or biologically vulnerable subgroup.
That evidence is now before the court.
An internal warning dismissed
Dr Mehlsen wasn’t always a critic of Gardasil. For years, he collaborated with Merck in conducting clinical trials involving the vaccine.
As principal investigator at Denmark’s Coordinating Research Center, he worked directly with Merck’s Danish branch, overseeing more than 3,000 participants in Gardasil-4 and Gardasil-9 trials.
He served on steering committees, coordinated national recruitment, and co-authored peer-reviewed publications on the vaccine.
But by 2011, Mehlsen noticed a troubling trend.
IPAK-EDU is grateful to Maryanne Demasi, reports as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
Leave a Reply