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NotPetya Outbreak Left Merck Short of HPV Vaccine Gardasil (securityledger.com)
chicksdaddy shares a report from The Security Ledger: The NotPetya malware infection shut down pharmaceutical giant Merck's production of the pediatric vaccine GARDASIL last June, forcing the company to borrow the drug from a stockpile maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to meet demand, The Security Ledger reports. The anecdote was contained in a quarterly filing by Merck with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. That filing also showed that the company continues to suffer financial fallout from the outbreak of the NotPetya malware in June, reducing both sales and revenue for the quarter by hundreds of millions of dollars. In its quarterly 8-k filing, Merck said that revenue for the quarter was "unfavorably impacted" by around $135 million due to "lost sales in certain markets related to the cyber-attack." Sales in the third quarter of 2017 were also reduced by around $240 million, which Merck chalked up to production shutdowns resulting from NotPetya. In a chilling insight into the extent of the disruption the malware caused to Merck's operations, the company disclosed that part of its quarterly losses were linked to the interruption of its production of GARDASIL, a vaccine used to prevent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) which is linked to certain cancers and other diseases. To make up for what it described as "overall higher demand than originally planned," Merck was forced to borrow the vaccine from a stockpile maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the company said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wart#Prevention
Gardasil 6 is an HPV vaccine aimed at preventing cervical cancers and genital warts. Gardasil is designed to prevent infection with HPV types 16, 18, 6, and 11. HPV types 16 and 18 currently cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases,[11][12] and also cause some vulvar, vaginal,[9] penile and anal cancers.[10] HPV types 6 and 11 are responsible for 90% of documented cases of genital warts.[14]
More than 200k cases of cervical cancer diagnosed worldwide ; before the generalization of the vaccination against HPV around 15% of female have got genital warts, now we are around 0.5%... And nearly zero sides effects. Yeaaah, a little shitty vaccine.
Condoms give even better protection. Also against pregnancy.
There are two main ways you get HPV and most other VDs: Screwing strangers without protection, or being in a partnership with someone who screws strangers without protection.
If the first, you're an idiot, If the second, you're a cuckold idiot.
Before complaining about how condoms are a chore or don't feel as good, look at a few pictures of the results of VDs. Being that this is human genitalia, the most powerful germ spreader in the world, and would putrefy your dick head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?
The vaccine can be useful in preventing teen infections, when hormones take over and Southern politicians make it difficult for them to get safe prophylactics, and idiot parents make it shameful. Believing your kids will be abstinent unless they're ugly is as stupid as believing in talking bushes. But in most cases, I have little sympathy for those who catch VDs, because condoms provide a fairly good protection.
HPV causes a lot of things (various isotypes are responsible for warts, most head and neck cancer, penile cancer); it is also the (99.7% of the time) cause of cervical cancer. HPV vaccination has been shown to prevent cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and carcinoma in situ, the precursor lesions to invasive cervical cancer, in large randomized trials. The current 9-valent HPV vaccine is 97% effective in preventing CIN 2 (moderate) and more severe disease (CIN 3, carcinoma in situ). It also prevents the vaginal equivalent (VIN2/3) - 100% effective, in fact, among HPV naive populations, and 62% among the overall population.
Current cervical cancer prevention strategy involves Pap smears and then biopsies and surgical intervention when we find abnormalities. It's not cheap, and involves women (best case) getting an exam they don't like every 3 years from 21-29 years of age, and every 5 years from age 30-65 years of age. In the worst case, in areas and among populations that don't get Pap screening, people either can try to get to "screen and treat" centers (where we use liquid nitrogen to spots that show up on a cervix swabbed with vinegar), or, more often, simply consign a percentage of women to a miserable death. Cervical cancer is common (17.8 per 100k in countries without screening, with 9.8 of those dying), which amounts to about 266,000 deaths per year. In developed countries, cervical cancer is the eleventh most common type of cancer and ninth most common cause of cancer mortality (3.3 per 100k). In the US, that amounts of 13,000 cases per year, and 4100 deaths.
It stands to reason that HPV vaccine, since it prevents in HPV infection, and advanced pre-cancerous lesions, will likely be shown to prevent incident cancer as well when the vaccine has been around long enough. (The vaccine was first licenses in June 2006; most women get colonized with HPV around sexual debut but the cancer doesn't show up until age 35-55, a 20-40 year delay.) The tragedy of the vaccine, if any, is that it is largely available only in developed countries, where most people can get treatment rather than dying from the disease. That's not nothing: ask any woman who has to have repeated colposcopies and LEEP surgery if she would have preferred to have gotten 2 shots around age 11 and skipped all of the attended pain, expense, and risk of later preterm labor.
In fact, with the introduction of widespread HPV vaccination in the United States proposals are already afloat to change Pap screening—one proposal suggests every 10 year screening for vaccinated persons. Despite the expense of the vaccine ($240 for the two shot series) it's likely to be cheaper and less cruel than the current state of the art.
You are free to consider Gardasil to be a "scare tactic." As a family physician who gets to follow up on plenty of abnormal Paps, and not a particular fan of the pharmaceutical companies, my kids are getting vaccinated