The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on the growing opposition to state moves to mandate use of a new cervical cancer vaccine in preteen girls.
The paper reports: "Bills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.
The bills coincide with an aggressive lobbying campaign by Merck & Co., the maker of the only such vaccine on the market. Called Gardasil, the three-shot regimen provides protection against the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted virus that is responsible for the majority of cases of cervical cancer.
If the state bills become law, they would guarantee the Whitehouse Station, N.J., drug maker billions of dollars in annual revenue from the vaccine."
Regardless of "state requirements", parents still have an out for their children, by completing "objecter " forms.I don't care who gets the money. At the end of the day, if it protects young woman good! Read the fine print Mr.
Regarding Katie Couric comments awhile back / colon cancer/journalism - anytime you bring personal issues to the forefront, and your a "top dog" conflicts may arise. But I'll tell you this -if you have ever had someone die in your arms from this terrible disease (and I have) you'll fight, promote, get involved to any degree to beat this nasty body eating scourge. And that's what it is - a body eater.
Posted by: Obie at February 7, 2007 11:31 AM
The Journal did a good job on this one.
This is not a story about protecting American women against the imminent threat of cervical cancer. Thanks to Pap smears, cervical cancer will acount for just .65% (less than one percent) of cancer deaths in the U.S. this year.
Of course this is still too many, but almost all of those who die will be women who did not get regular Pap smears. We do not need a campaign to mandate a $360 cervical cancer vaccine--what we need is a campaign (perhaps through the shcools) to get girls in the habit of having regular Pap smears.
Pap smears are far more important than the vaccine because they are far more effective. The fact about the vaccine which has been under-reported is this: the vaccine offers protection against just 70 percent of the viruses that cause cervical cancer.
Most news stories parrot Merck's language, asserting that Gardasil protects against "most" of the viruses. Sure, 70% is more than 50%; literally, it qualifies as "most." But the language is misleading.
Garadsil is not even a "vaccine" as the dictionary defines: a substance that "offers immunity" against a particular disease. Girls who are vaccinated are not immune. Even Merck acknowledges that they still need to get regular Pap smears.
Yet, by calling Gardasil a "vaccine" both Merck and the media are creating the misealding impression that girls who have been vaccinated are safe. As one young girl in Texas put it on NBC news last week-end "Now that I've had the vaccine this is one cancer I don't have to worry about fighting."
This is not true. But there is a real danger that girls who have been vaccinated will believe that don't need regular Pap smears--or that Pap smears just aren't that important. How many will remember that they are still suspectible to more than one-fourth of the viruses that cause the cancer? Or that after five years, they may well be susceptible to all of the viruses? (Merck doesn't know how long the vaccine lasts; so far it can claim only that it should last for 5 years.)
Why are we talking about asking every girl and young woman in America to spend $360 on this vaccine? Just one reason: Merck needs a blockbuster drug, and the company has been extraordinarily successful in appealing of our fear of cancer to hype its product.
Gardasil would be enormously useful in emerging countires, where Pap smears are not readily available as they are here. But so far, Merck has not offered to make its enormously expensive vaccine availalbe to the emerging world at an affordable price.