UPDATED on June 14, 2022

The national law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman has filed a Gardasil lawsuit against Merck on behalf of a 19-year-old woman, alleging the company misled the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), legislators, doctors and moms about the safety and efficacy of its Gardasil HPV vaccine.

The lawsuit asserts Merck purposely downplayed the risk of Gardasil’s ingredients, including a proprietary aluminum compound (a potent neurotoxin) and secret and potentially hazardous DNA particles.

Per the complaint, plaintiff Julia Balasco suffered and continues to suffer severe and permanent physical injuries such as an autoimmune disease known as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) after receiving multiple injections of the human papillomavirus (HPV) Gardasil vaccine. Ms. Balasco’s injuries were so severe and debilitating, that she was physically unable to attend most of her high school years.

When Julia was due for her third Gardasil injection, her mother started to believe that Gardasil may have been the cause of her daughter’s symptoms. The family doctor agreed that the timeline following each of the shots and the symptoms Julia experienced was suspicious but could not say for certain that Gardasil was the cause.

After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and years of struggle, Julia’s life continues to be altered in very dramatic ways. Now 19, she struggles to keep up with friends and cannot participate in many of the things she used to enjoy. She was forced to stop cheerleading because she could no longer participate and has switched to online learning exclusively instead of attending in-person classes.

“This is no life for anyone,” her mother says. If Mrs. Balasco had been informed about the known safety risks associated with Gardasil, she never would have allowed her daughter to receive the HPV vaccine.

“It’s too late for my daughter. The damage is already done, but it’s not too late to warn other parents about the truth about Gardasil,” said Michaela Balasco, Julia’s mother. “Thousands of families are going through what we are going through. I have made friends around the world whose children are suffering like my Julia. She is not alone. I want Gardasil off the market so my grandkids and other children don’t have to needlessly suffer these injuries.”

Read more about the Gardasil lawsuit here.

June 2022 UPDATE:

Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman has created a Gardasil Injury Compensation Guide to get some much-needed information out there to people who may be suffering from post-Gardasil injuries. They get a lot of callers with questions about how these cases work, time limits on their cases, and what resources there are available to people. This guide addresses those and other questions.  

Click here to access the guide.

Click here for a PDF version of the guide.