So basically, the investigators report that mice inoculated with HPV and pertussis toxin had impaired responsiveness of the tail reflex and reduced locomotive activity. Again, this is a very artificial system basically designed to show something. Pathological analyses supposedly revealed damage to areas of the brain (the hypothalamus and circumventricular regions) around the third ventricle, as well as increased apoptosis (programmed cell death) in the vascular endothelial cells (the cells lining the blood vessels) in these regions.
One commenter noted exactly this problem and others that I’ve mentioned above:
If seven times more apoptotic cells were observed in mice treated with Gardasil and pertussis toxin than those in control mice, how much were the actual number (e.g. the average number per 10 or more high power fields)? Similarly, if tyrosine hydroxylase was increased in PVN, and glutamic acid decarboxylase 67 and gamma-aminobutyric acid was decreased in PVN, how did they assess these findings (e.g. by comparing the intensity of positive staining per 10 or more high power fields)? They did not mention at all how they analyzed these pathological findings. Instead, they only showed numerous microscopic pictures which might manipulate readers’ images.