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Merck To Halt Lobbying For Vaccine
theodp writes "Reacting to a furor from some parents, advocacy groups, and public health experts, Merck said yesterday that it would stop lobbying state legislatures to require the use of its new cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, which acts against strains of the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus. The $400, 3-shot regimen was approved by the FDA in June. Later that month, a federal advisory panel recommended that females 11-26 years old be vaccinated. The governor of Texas has already signed an executive order making its use mandatory for schoolgirls."
Seriously, what goes through the minds of these people? That the risk of getting HPV and cervical cancer is currently stopping teenage girls from having sex? How stupidly selfish do you have to be to not want more women to be vaccinated against HPV?
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These companies shouldn't even be allowed to contribute $1. As a matter of fact, government figures shouldn't be allowed to receive any money from any businesses. The sole reason that a business would contribute money to a politician is to get some favors. That is the bottom line. This story stinks and stinks real bad.
gasmonso http://religousfreaks.com/Merck produces a vaccine. Merck tells the Government that this is a patented drug that other companies should not be allowed to produce because they thought of it first. Furthermore, they demand that every single female should be forced to buy and use their product at whatever price they set.
Which brings me to my point: FUCK OFF MERCK.
You jackasses think that you should have the exclusive right to manufacture a product and force it on everyone via bribed government officials? That is sick,immoral, and anti-capitalistic.
... because HPV vaccination prevents AIDS and pregnancy.
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Why not? Choosing to remain unvaccinated hurts others.
http://outcampaign.org/
It's interesting that this perfectly reasonable objection seems to only be used as a rationalization for other, borderline-bizarre, "moral" objections. I could almost get behind this one, but most of the people questioning the safety of the drug really aren't interested in its safety per se, and wouldn't ever be satisfied by any amount of evidence as to its efficacy, because they're just using it as a sham argument.
I'm not saying you are, but as I've been following the progress of this issue, it's seemed to progress something like this:
1) Religious-right insists that anything which might make sex 'safer' is a tool of Satan, and has no purpose besides corrupting their little darlings.
2) Basically everyone else raises eyebrows, questions their sanity.
3) Religious-right folks have a powwow, try to think up rational justification for #1. Failing that, they find a totally different, seemingly rational justification for their position, but which has nothing to do with their actual motives.
4) Everyone else spends a whole lot of time and effort responding to the seemingly rational objection from #3, but are just wasting their time, because the real objection is not rational or practical. It's entirely religious (and somewhat Freudian).
So, in short, you have a good point, but it's going to be an uphill battle to get anyone to take it seriously.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
There are issues aside from Merck doing this and that--it's all the usual influence peddling which would be expected in the insipidly broken system that is US health care. Merck is not the target here. One target is the FDA that is utterly incompetent and immorally charged to make life or death decisions with approvals and expensive bureaucracies. Once the FDA required proof for efficacy (instead of just safety as they had been doing for 60 years prior) is probably the single most important milestone on the downward spiral.
Given the cost of drug development, I'm surprised it's only $400. Vaccines are a one-time profit for Merck until their patent runs out. Given the alternative costs of therapies (guaranteed revenue), there's a good chance Merck just might not be as evil as they are made to be. $400 doesn't get you much in the medical world these days--not even an hour with a specialist at my doctor's office. Again, this is symptomatic of a broken system where someone else always ends up paying the cost of medical treatment or you never knowing until the bill bites you. We should be so lucky that the established price is at the forefront of the discussion.
Besides, it works against a virus, a communicable disease that can be conceivably arrested and perhaps eradicated, for far less than the cost of the effective treatment for the cancer it causes. Treat it forever or squash it now. Shouldn't something this simple be prioritized? How is this different from everything else we get shots for if people who don't have health insurance can get it, and those that don't want it won't have it forced down their throat?
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
By mandating in Texas it allows low-income families to get the vaccine without insurance. And by mandating the vaccine it forces insurance companies to pay for it so your out of pocket cost is now lower.
And if someone doesn't want to get vaccinated they can opt out.
p.s. The large sum of money was $6,000 out of the $24 "million" of his campaign contributions. And there is bills in 20 other states which are going to require girls to get the vaccine. And if his brother worked for Merck why isn't is printed in all the news articles? That would be great at selling more papers.
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Just wondering? How could it possibly be 100% effecting in preventing cervical cancer when only 3 or 4 strains of HPV are targeted by the vaccine? And around 20% of cervical cancers are unrelated to HPV exposure?
Do they sprinkle the vaccine with magic faerie dust?
Lets vaccinate everybody...and then once its done, we will vaccinate them again, against the diseases that come forth from the previous vaccination (which of course wouldn't have happened otherwise).
You really seem to misunderstand vaccination, along with the people who modded you insightful. Vaccination works by introducing a biological compound (usually a dead virus) that is similar to a real virus. By exposing the immune system to this agent, the immune system is stimulated so that when you encounter a real virus, your immune system reacts very strongly and prevents the virus from causing disease. Vaccines work very, very well for many, many diseases that are otherwise difficult or impossible to treat (there is a reason smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the earth).
Vaccination only works when you want to stimulate the immune system to fight off a foreign invader (viral or bacterial). It doesn't work against anything else.
I mean the long-term effects. It is well known that any so-called cure of something like cancer or such a disease (or for that reason any unnatural medicine) has side-effects.
Many medications have side effects, true. But the benefits usually outweigh the side effects. Go talk to someone who survived smallpox without a vaccine. There aren't many of them. Ask them if they would rather have had a vaccine.
Unnatural medicine? WTF? Is there some magic "natural medicine" that doesn't have side effects? If you go into your common hippy, granola, organic remedy store, there are all sorts of natural products that have side effects. Some can even kill you in large doses. Just like prescription drugs.
For example, radiation to cure cancer actually increases the probability of some other cancers, introduces problems in progenies (or the possibility thereof).
You are correct, the radiation used to treat rapidly growing cancers, can increase the likelyhood of other cancers. But if your untreated rapidly growing cancer will likely kill you in 12 months, would you trade that risk for in increased likelyhood of other cancers in 20 years?
Incidentally, do you know what is the best way to survive cancer? Don't get cancer in the first place. So eat lots of fruits & vegetables, exercise, and don't smoke. And get this new vaccine if you're female.
The whole "force" thing is a red herring; the government isn't really forcing anyone to do anything. You can opt out of any of the vaccines, including the HPV one. So people who are hell-bent on not getting their kids vaccinated can still do so.
Really, the purpose of making the vaccine required, rather than optional, is to require the huge 'silent majority' of people who don't have a strong opinion either way, and will just do whatever is easiest and requires the least amount of effort from them, to get their kids vaccinated. Without a requirement to do so, they won't bother, regardless of the long-term benefits. They just want to get the kid off to school; they'll schedule a doctor's appointment and cough up the cash if that's what it takes, but otherwise they never will.
Basically, the purpose of the requirement is to make sure girls whose parents are too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to have an opinion either way, don't get punished later on. Parents with a strong opinion in favor of vaccination aren't really affected, because their daughters would have gotten it anyway, and parents who are strongly opposed can always opt out along with the Christian Scientists.
This isn't really a policy that's aimed at the extreme ends of the spectrum, it's aimed at the middle, but as usual it's really being argued on by people who really have the least at stake.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ok, I am a pathologist, which means I ACTUALLY SEE CERVICAL CANCERS and unlike you armchair epidemiologists know what we are dealing with here. Cervical cancer is rare these days, but the more pertinent issue is that THIS IS THE FIRST VACCINE AVAILABLE THAT CAN ACTUALLY PREVENT CANCER! Do you understand that, no? well argue your stupid little points about safety and how many it will protect. Do you want to actually improve the health of people? If yes, then you need to favor this vaccine, no matter what your primitive superstitions say. Or your evidence-lacking vaccine fears are.
I guess if you have never seen a pelvic exenteration specimen you may not feel as strongly as I might. Hell, I am putting people in my line of work OUT OF WORK, but it isn't about job security, it is about people's lives. Also, it is about the reduced cost to society in pap smears, colposcopy, and everything else involved in cervical cancer surveillance. I don't think any of you, especially the males understand the enormity of impact this vaccine could have. We are talking billions of dollars and hundreds of lives each year.
Get out of your armchair and learn something before proclaiming.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I'm curious about your use of the word "innocent". Are you trying to suggest that girls who have sex are somehow "guilty"? Or that because they had sex they somehow deserveto get cervical cancer?
You do understand that most people in the world "actually have sex". I don't think we really want to condemn them to getting cancer for doing something that we were all designed to do.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This vaccine has nothing at all to do with attending public school. It's not an airborne disease, and so isn't something you could possible contract at school. The idea that states are requiring it for students is overstepping their authority, and corruption, in the most blatant terms.
This is totalitarianism, pure and simple. The state now tells you what medicines you must take, and you have no choice in the matter. Worried about side-effects? Worried about taking unnecessary medication? Too bad. It's the law.
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If you only vaccinate half of the population, you are sure to never wipe out the virus. So there will always be demand for this $400 shot until the patent expires and Merck patents a vaccine that covers those 4 virusses and 4 new ones.
I wonder if this is what Merck intended when they were lobbying for it. It wouold be much more cost effective if a) the vaccine was sold at the true marginal cost and b) the gouvernment would vaccinate everybody under 40. The coverage woould be so much wider that those few percent religio-fanatics that object to it would not matter too much.
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