Slashdot Mirror
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."
To put it in perspective Rick Perry had $24 million in contributions the same year Merck gave him $6,000. If you really think he was motivated by such a small donation you haven't seen what it takes to get things done in government.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
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?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
And the information on the 10 things you might know is wrong.
1. The blog states the vaccine only decreases the chance--that's wrong. If you have not been previously infected with HPV then there is a 100% effective rate.
2. In 2007 the incidence of cervical cancer went up.
3. Yep, it is the most expensive, however it is the ONLY vaccine which prevent cancer and DEATH. (And yeah it made $70 million, chump change for a company which made $22 billion in 2006).
4. Wrong. Gardasil is already a part of this program. Having a mandate will not change liability at all.
5. There is 5 year data now with another 3 1/2 year data prior to the launch of the drug; that's 8 1/2 years of data now.
6. This is true, however, in the current data there has been no wane in the immunity; and vaccines typically never need booster shots due to the way vaccines work.
7. Yes, neither was any other drug on the market.
8. Pure speculation. There has been no proof that aluminum is harmful. Gardasil was tested with Hepatitis B because it has the same aluminum compound and has been on the market for 19 years.
9. There are currently studies going on with boys and safety data is already available for boys in the label. Also, the EU and Australia are already using on boys.
10. It's ironic that the blog ends with making an uninformed decision when all the facts are wrong on the site.
Yeah, this seems like a shrill for Gardasil but I have personal knowledge of this drug and sometimes setting the facts straight on a drug which is saving lives need some truth out there among the free range blogs which aren't providing accurate information.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Yeah, the whole story stinks quite bad.
I live in Austin, Texas, and basically people have been going apeshit for a week or two. Without any law, concerned parents already have the means to give this shot to their daughters (just ask your doctor). So why make it a legal issue?
This has been in the local news quite a bit recently, and I recall hearing various bits on the radio, such as: Rick Perry's brother works for Merck, Perry had large sums of money transferred into his account by Merck within days of announcing this law, and Perry usually doesn't take a stand for anything at all so it's extremely odd that he's pushing something as wide-sweeping as requiring all girls 11+ years old to get a shot. In the press, Perry keeps saying things like, "I want to do whatever I can to protect life", etc.
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.
http://outcampaign.org/
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."
More to the point, I'm not sure people realize just how easy it is to contract HPV. Not only that, but there really aren't any tests for males. It usually shows no symptoms, though I think that certain types result in genital warts.
Sex isn't even necessary to contract it. A large chunk of the adult population has it and doesn't know it. I could have it, for all I know. But it causes cervical cancer.
COMPUTER! Whatever happened to Blueberry Muffin?
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.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
I'm encouraged by the tone of this discussion. There seem to be a lot of people here who will see that their daughters are vaccinated if/when they have daughters. It hasn't been that long ago that the PAP test itself wasn't covered by most insurance plans because cervical cancer was limited to only one sex. Yes, that was the reason commonly given. Public outcry and the obvious benefits of the test caused insurance companies to re-think that one.
The problem here is that the religious right is being its usual shrill self and is drowning out any potentially legitimate reasons there might be for parents not to get the immunization for their daughters. One such reason might be a desire to wait and be certain the vaccine is actually safe and effective. We've seen a lot of drugs taken off the market recently because of unforeseen dangers and side effects. (Anti-arthritic drugs come to mind.) However there are enough lunatics around who equate the HPV vaccine with enabling their teenage daughters to have sex without fear. I can imagine that conversation: Don't have sex, you can get cancer from it. It's to be hoped that these idiots don't drown out the voices of reason. It's interesting that they either (a) haven't succeeded in convincing their daughters of their message, or (b) want to control the morals of other peoples' daughters.
At this point, mandatory immunizations for school seem to cover what used to be thought of as infectious "childhood diseases" such as measles, mumps, diphtheria, polio, and all the others. Those caused massive epidemics in the past. The difference here is that cervical cancer won't run through the schools like wildfire endangering everyone who breathes the common air.
On balance, I suppose I'd rather see the vaccine made mandatory than to see it become a privilege of those who can afford it.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
You can't really eradicate a disease through a program of voluntary vaccination.
*As an aside, you may have heard that this vaccine will be voluntary, blah blah blah. That's because the Federal Law has an exemption such that your child does not have to be vaccinated against anything to attend school, as long as you claim it goes against your religious (defined as moral or ethical) beliefs. Legally, you don't have to go into any further details to get an exemption. Just put it in writing & send it to the school.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.