Apologies for my lack of writing lately — I have been extremely busy with work and offline life. After tonight, things should go back to normal.
Anyway, looks like I was right about Gardasil not having an uphill fight:
A government advisory committee is recommending that all 11- and 12-year-old girls get a new vaccine to prevent the sexually transmitted virus that leads to most cases of cervical cancer. Moreover, the vaccine will get federal funding under the Vaccines for Children program.
Additionally, the vaccine can be given to girls as young as 9.
[…]
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP, convened by Centers for Disease Control, also recommended routine use of the vaccine for women between the ages of 13 and 26 regardless of the status of pap-smear tests that measure precursors to cervical cancer.
This is good news for Merck, and for all women. Glad to see the religious retardsright was not able to derail Gardasil recommendation. This part stood out to me, because it notes that the decision was really a non-event:
In a note this morning that preceded the meeting, Timothy Anderson, pharmaceuticals analyst at Prudential Equity Group, had called the decision “a formality.”
Hooray common sense!
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, Gardasil, Merck, politics, religion[/tags]
Does the recommendation mean that males will not be given the vaccine as part of the Vaccines for Children program? Bah. What are the options for boys and men?
I’m sorry if this is an obvious set of questions.
No, it’s not an obvious question. :)
Gardasil is currently being tested in males, and will likely be approved for them at a later date. If a doc feels that a man is at high risk for contracting HPV, said doc can prescribe the vaccine if he feels it is warranted.
Gardasil has been approved for one relatively small (but important) demographic. It will likely be approved for other demographics within another year or so. ACIP can only make recommendations based on FDA-approved uses. Doctors can prescribe outside those approved uses if they want.
Just to name two, CDC and Rutgers University, and many many others all agree that HPV is routinely handled by our immune system.
20% or less of the population can be affected by a chronic infection which clearly indicates a problem with those individuals’ immune systems. A small percentage of those chronically infected will get cervical cancer.
We don’t know the manner in which these immune systems have been compromised. It is NOT a logical conclusion that HPV causes cervical cancer.
It is a probability that either HPV and/or the compromised immune system can be involved in the high incidence of cervical cancer, but other than this association I have yet to read a proof of HPV causing cancer. I have read guesses involving known cancer related genome sections, but nothing concrete or substantial.
I know that immunocompromised individuals regularly contract cancers that are present in no one else, as a class, in the human population. This leads me to the conclusion that the immune system does indeed fight at least some forms of cancer.
My guess is that an immune system problem allows chronic HPV infection and in some compromised imune systems the changes also allow cervical cancer to developed unchecked.
I also understand that there are hundreds of billions of health-care dollars involved if Merck gets this approved and funded by government programs.
I truly believe that this potential windfall is tainting researchers and regulatory agencies to support and approve a vaccine whose efficacy is questionable and the very root premise for which may be a series of well constructed fabrications.
This is a lengthy article on Gardasil and Merck’s bribing and manipulating people and organizations.
It is worth the read. Gardasil is useless.
According to the CDC and the American Cancer Society (and many others) all HPV, high or low risk, are cleared by the immune system. But from what I have read that can take up to a year.
I think HPV vaccines are a waste of resources.
My reasoning is as follows.
1. HPV are a common infection nearly always cleared by the immune system.
2. Anyone with a chronic HPV infection must have an immune system problem (nutritional deficiency, toxin-induced, genetic, immunosuppression etc.)
3. Merck reports that cervical cancer is almost always accompanied by a chronic HPV infection.
4. Gardasil provokes an immune reaction to 2 out of 38 types of HPV that “cause” cervical cancer. It does this using inactivated proteins that are part of the virus protein coat.
Though I have yet to see any statistics regarding the type of HPV that have become chronic, I assume it will be one or more of the 38 that are blamed for cancer. (I personally don’t believe that cervical cancer is caused by HPV, but that chronic HPV infection is evidence of a compromised immune system and that a compromised immune system allows the development of cervical cancer.)
For the rest of this comment I will assume that cervical cancer is caused by a chronic HPV infection.
If only people chronically infected with HPV will get cervical cancer and that chronic infection is due to the immune system being unable to clear the HPV, there is a big problem. How can the vaccine protect against HPV if the immune system is unable to detect or destroy the inactivated proteins?
I don’t believe it can. People whose immune systems are capable of detecting and destroying HPV don�t need the vaccine. People whose immune systems cannot detect or destroy HPV won’t react to Gardasil’s inactivated viral proteins and cannot be protected from a chronic HPV infection, or, ultimately, cervical cancer. These people also do not need the vaccine.
More simply, the vaccine is not needed by people who clear HPV naturally and is useless for people who can become chronically infected with HPV.
Additional problems surrounding this vaccine;
1. Only a small percentage of HPV chronically infected women go on to get lesions or cancer, and a smaller percentage of them die from the cancer that develops. This is not a public health threat for which mandatory vaccinations should be required. A very small percentage of the USA population dies from cervical cancer (.003%). While I know that this number is still around 3-5000, and I am empathetic towards the victims, it is a huge diservice to everyone to vaccinate with a useless vaccine that will end up costing more than all other vaccines combined. Women who die of cervical cancer are not seeking regular medical attention or cannot afford it. These same women will not get the vaccine and therefore, even if the vaccine worked as claimed, this type of woman will still get CC and still die.
2. a. The only state that has approved mandatory vaccinations (Texas) did so through an executive order from the governor. The Texas legislature revoked the order when it was revealed that Merck was behind some political contributions ($45,000 worth in “donations”).
b. The Texas Governor’s Chief of Staff has become a Merck lobbyist.
c.An organization, Women In Government, is lobbying 20 state governments to mandate Gardasil, while they are taking hefty contributions from Merck.
These are just three of MANY examples that Merck is clearly buying influence around the world in an attempt to make mandatory the most expensive vaccine ever created.
3. Here’s more… In June and October 2006 PBS’ “The Jim Lehrer News Hour” did 2 interviews with Elizabeth Garner of Brigham and Women�s Hospital in Boston who enthusiastically supported Gardasil. Both interviewers (Jeffrey Brown and Margaret Warner) made personal assertions that Garner was free of influence from Merck.
They are not very good reporters or they lied.
The Dana Carver Cancer Institute made significant contributions to the Brigham and Women�s Hospital in Boston, and Merck made significant contributions to the Dana Carver Institue.
To make matters MUCH worse;
*** Garner is now Merck’s worldwide spokesperson for Gardasil***
4. That is not the first time that Merck went to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for help with a drug. During the Vioxx scandal they used a Rheumatologist at Brigham’s, Weinblatt, to manipulate data on the heart attacks being caused by Vioxx. Vioxx is estimated to have killed 38000-52000 people. The people at Merck deny any wrongdoing, but deliberately ignored data and tampered with evidence to conceal the problems with heart attack and strokes. Merck ended up paying 4.4 billion to settle claims against it due to Vioxx in 2007.
With Gardasil Merck is running a similar scam, but they have worked the kinks out, well, most of them anyway. The same people that tried to wriggle out of the Vioxx scandal are running the Gardasil show.
How far should we be willing to trust them this time? Not at all.
5. Merck was a major sponsor in April 2006 for a PBS special on drugs and vaccines in a world threatened by many illnesses (RX for Survival). This was a 2-hour special which featured significant advertisement for Merck. Shame Shame on PBS, now truly a corporate partner instead of the bastion of objective truth we expect it to be.
6. The INS is now vaccinating immigrants. I have yet to discover the way in which Merck manipulated this and whether they have started innoculating boys and men through this unscrupulous act.
7. Gardasil and Glaxo’s Cervarix protect against 2 of 38 HPV. If you are innoculated with Gardasil or Cervarix
you will still have to get regular PAP smears and STILL run a significant risk of getting cervical cancer from the other 36 cancer causing HPV.
8. The vaccine IS NOT PROVED to protect you from cancer. That proof is 15-20 years from now when the first wave of innoculees starts developing cancer. Merck is ready for that eventuality, however. They will say that the women were infected with one of the HPV they didn’t protect against, they were already infected when they were innoculated or booster shots are needed. To determine the efficacy of booster shots will take another 15-20 years. By then the frauds that Merck is pulling now will be openly discussed as history.
The bottom line – Gardasil and Cervarix is not needed for someone with a healthy immune system and cannot help those that can be chronically infected with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18.
It is useless!!