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our culture's recent history of profit margins over ethical concerns...

While I point no fingers, I have to wonder.

Why inoculate an entire *generation of women* because we're too chicken to teach proper sex hygiene?

...& if you do inoculate... what happens if there is a 40-year delay or generational impact in negative effects?

...wow. I guess you're screwed, right?

So basically, we're letting FEAR of disease & an argument for religion, culture or sexual freedom decide how to treat our daughters.
... you don't hear of shots for dudes, do you?
... maybe the issue isn't culture, religion or sexual freedom, but prudence & a recognition that our society & consumers can't even get a stable computer operating system, exo-hormone-free environments or even uncontaminated catfood.

& we wanna mess with the defaults when we could teach people how to protect themselves?

wow. that's a lot of trust issues.

~~~
Spread Love...
... but wear the Glove!

BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
~~~
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

Thanks for posting this. Merck exists, as we know, to make money, not to cure illness... in that sense, the "One Less" campaign was a work of marketing brilliance, although disingenuous.

Kevin Sender

Access in Theory, and in Practice

Momentarily setting aside valid concerns about the mandating of a new vaccine, there are other issues to consider. Gardasil is not an inexpensive drug. Each vaccine shot will cost $120 through private insurance, or $96 through governmental programs buying at the federal rate. Those that have insurance may only need to pay a co-payment if it is offered by their provider and those on government assistance programs might not pay at all, but those without insurance would have a hefty bill to pay, particularly if it is mandated for school attendance, and if there are several girls in a family. $360 on average for each girl would add up quickly for a family that may fall in the working poor class -- the people that most often do not have health care through their employer but do not qualify for government assistance. These are the same women that are most likely not receiving regular Pap tests to detect early pre-cancerous conditions before they develop into life-threatening cancer.

The idea of mandating HPV vaccination for girls as a requisite for school attendance may seem helpful, or at worst benign, but this isn't the case. Government mandates often create requirements, but not the funding to fulfill them. Even a government recommendation can have far reaching effects on access. On June 8, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil as the first vaccine against Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Less than a month later, the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP) unanimously recommended vaccination for 11 and 12 year old girls. According to the Oncology Nursing Society, the ACIP also "resolved that the HPV vaccine be included in the Vaccination for Children (VFC) Program, a national effort that provides free immunizations to children who are Medicaid eligible, uninsured, underinsured, or Native American. 'About 40%-45% of the U.S. child population is included in the VFC,' said Lance Rodewald, MD, of the Immunization Services Division.'"

This may sound positive, but Dr. Diane Harper sees it differently. Dr. Harper is a Professor at the Dartmouth Medical School and has been studying HPV for almost 20 years. She was involved with both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline in HPV vaccine trial design and served as a principal investigator at the clinic site for both the phase two and phase three trials for Gardasil and Cervarix.

In our interview, she stated that this federal directive to provide the vaccine free to such a large segment of the U.S. child population falls to the states, and federal funding covers at best 10% of the cost of the program. So the federal government is requiring states to cover the children, and the states themselves might choose to make the vaccine mandatory for school attendance. But 90% of the children who would in theory receive the shots free won't, and so parents will have to pay for the shots out of pocket or risk their daughter being barred from going to school. And those children that are covered by private insurance? Dr. Harper explained further that particularly with a drug as expensive as Gardasil, its inclusion in the Vaccination for Children program provides insurance companies with a perfect reason not to cover the shots for anyone under 18 years old beginning July 1, 2007.

"Insurance companies are saying that VFC program is required by law to purchase this. But the problem is that the states don't have enough money allocated by VFC to purchase enough to cover their whole state's population. So if you make a mandate that your child can't enter sixth grade as a twelve-year old without having the shots, and your state only has enough to give it to 10% of the twelve-year olds, and you're the next kid in line and your family doesn't have $500, then you can't go to school. And that is wrong."

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, 18% of children in the U.S. live below the federal poverty level ($20,650 a year for a family of four) and 38% of children live in low-income families. There is obviously a huge gap in coverage for those who can't afford the shots on their own. For most families, said Harper, "it would be an onerous amount to pay. And it would be awful to link your further education with your inability to pay for a vaccine."

Merck used its deep pockets to make sure that even before the FDA had approved Gardasil, there was a growing awareness of and concern about HPV and its link to cervical cancer. According to Bloomberg News, Merck spent $841,000 for Internet ads alone relating to HPV in the first quarter of 2006 -- months before the FDA had even approved Gardasil. In the next article, "Research, Develop, and Sell, Sell, Sell," we'll look in detail at the extensive marketing campaigns in the US which were in place before FDA approval and what has happened since.