Merck To Halt Lobbying For Vaccine 544
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."
What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gimme a break (Score:4, Insightful)
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/ [religousfreaks.com]Christian activists (Score:2, Insightful)
Naming (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm all for vaccinating everyone with this. But the campaign to fool the public by calling it a cervical cancer vaccine deserved to fail. And shame on all the newspapers and news organizations that went along with it. (I'm talking about you, New York Times.)
Re:What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we really know for sure that the vaccine is safe? Yes, they've tested it. But there have been medicines before that have been tested and found "safe", only to be pulled from the market after their release.
At this early stage I think, and this is just my $0.02, that it should be readily available, and that the public should be educated about the benefits and risks, so that they can make up their own minds. After there is a proven track record, then consider making it mandatory.
Can you imagine the social impact if the drug were required for all school age girls, then a few years later they find out that there is a devastating long term effect that hadn't been discovered, or worse, had been discovered but was suppressed in the name of profit?
I think we should tread lightly when we consider forcing the public to take a newly released drug.
Re:What do they think? (Score:0, Insightful)
Umm, go fuck yourself? Let me guess -- you *don't* have a 7 year old daughter, do you? I do, and in just two years, under the law proposed in my state, she would be required to get the vaccination in order to attend public school. Because of drug company lobbying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you leftist fucks hated "Big Pharmaceutical"? What happened to that?
We should always be pessimistic... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's always easy to say that a new product or technology is going to improve our lives. There will always be studies stating that the "insert new thing here" is safe and will fix what ails us. Science and medicine are not perfect. New developments frequently come about which contradict previous scientific dogma. It is quite possible that some lasting damage will be done to these girls that did not show up earlier. I'm not saying that we should listen to the religious right. But we shouldn't use a vaccine on millions of girls just to spite them.
It would be much better to allow parents to opt in. A parent can make the decision for their child, not the government. The vaccination cost can be paid for by the state or federal government. When a girl becomes 18, she can then decide to be vaccinated at that point. With fewer girls being vaccinated, it mitigates the consequences of unintended side effects.
Good idea - bad implementation (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, if I had a daughter in that age range I'd seriously consider getting her the vaccine because it has to be administered early to be effective. And I really don't think it needs to be discussed with the kids any more than a measles vaccine does - it's just another shot they'd be getting.
Re:What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
why does the government require this? (Score:2, Insightful)
But when the government requires it, and is heavily lobbied by a drug company, that kinda rubs me the wrong way. Shouldn't these decisions be left up to the parents and doctors?
Whatever the case, it doesn't keep me up at night. As long as the fundies don't OUTLAW vaccines like this, I'm cool.
Let me get this straight.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:What do they think? (Score:3, Insightful)
But the FDA generally does a good job of erring on the side of caution, to the point where other crazy people will accuse them of causing deaths by not approving a treatment faster. And given the prevalence of HPV (see the well-cited Wikipedia article, or any other reliable source) and its obvious dangers, vaccination makes sense as public health policy.
Re:What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think ANY reasonable person is against vaccination -- just against MANDATORY vaccination.
You may want to look at this [medscape.com].
Perhaps after more studies there'll be a more compelling reason, say after results of the phase II or phase III studies, but I can still see huge arguments against based on economic reasons. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to make paps available to under served women than it is to vaccinate every woman aged 11-26 -- then every 11 year old every year...
Re:What do they think? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's great news (Score:5, Insightful)
... because HPV vaccination prevents AIDS and pregnancy.
Re:Good idea - bad implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? Choosing to remain unvaccinated hurts others. [wikipedia.org]
Rationality expired a while ago. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
$400? Not bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Okay, here is your break (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Gimme a break (Score:4, Insightful)
But I completely see your logic...why make it a legal issue? Why should we require kids to get ANY vaccinations? We should just make them all optional. What kind of dumb person would want to eradicate something that causes cancer? It makes absolutely no sense to me. Fuck vaccines, yay diseases!
Vaccine Safety? (Score:2, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine#Vaccine_Cont
http://www.putchildrenfirst.org/ [putchildrenfirst.org]
http://www.autismwebsite.com/ARI/vaccine/vaccine.
Re:A little perspective first (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they sprinkle the vaccine with magic faerie dust?
Re:What do they think? (Score:2, Insightful)
You can argue against all mandatory vaccinations if want, but you can't be selective about it. HPV is just as dangerous as, for example, polio. If HPV were any other disease, it would be a no-brainer as this vaccine is fairly-well tested and stops some very bad stuff that is pretty common, but apparently fucking imbeciles think it's acceptable to threaten their children with cancer to keep them from having sex.
Yes, yes, if you object to all vaccines on religious grounds or some stupid shit like that, whatever. Apparently it's legal for those morons to keep their children, although not in my schools. But just objecting to one so your children will be threatened? No.
It's like being a conscientious objector. You can't object to a war and be one, you have to object to all wars, or all violence, or have some sort of global belief in that regard. So logically you can object to all medicine, or all surgery, or all vaccines, or all blood transfusions, or whatever, and keep them from your kid. But not just one.
And, yes, there is a religious belief involved, but it's not anything to do with the vaccine, or the cancer. It, instead, is the idea that pre-martial sex should be dangerous. Believing your own child's choices should be dangerous for them and causing it to be so sounds like a textbook case of child endangerment to me.
Who should choose? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A little perspective first (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes Let's do it !!! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:What do they think? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about drug companies is that they're a necessary evil: yes, they're in it for profit, but the products that they make a profit on save lives.
Re:What do they think? (Score:4, Insightful)
The requirement is for the unopinionated. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Rationality expired a while ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
But I can fault them for lying and pretending that they're motivated by a concern for health, instead of just coming out and moralizing to me like they want to. It works for me to point out that they're lying about their motivation and lying about health information, yet expecting me to trust them, admitted, proven liars, on moral issues. That usually shuts them up, and that's good enough. I realize they just go peddle their vicious lies to someone else, but sometimes being away from the loony is the best I can hope for. In a perfect world they'd realize "hey, my ideology has turned me into a shameless liar, and since integrity is important, maybe I should rethink this," but I don't think that happens very often.
Re:That's great news (Score:3, Insightful)
And has no bearing on whether her _husband_ carries HPV from previous encounters.
DIAF, you nutjob.
--
BMO
Re:Rationality expired a while ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just saying that you'll keep your kid inside when they get it doesn't help, since they're contagious two days before any symptoms show.
Here [wikipedia.org] is some more information on that "inconvenience". My grandfather suffers from shingles caused by chickenpox and it's no fun.
Besides, if your kid gets it, is it fair for your kid to pass it on to everyone else who hasn't had it? How about an adult who never got it?
Re:Rationality expired a while ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
And I STILL think it's a terrible idea to make such a new vaccine mandatory.
Call me nuts, but I cannot trust something so new, where side effects are unknown, and I can't trust Merpk to have my or my children's best interests at heart.
I think it's GREAT that this vaccine is available, but it should NOT be mandatory.
Do you even know what cervical caner is? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:A little perspective first (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget the above--it's a good one too.
If folks are going to vaccinate all their tender-yeared girls to save them from cancer, shouldn't they be making sure the carriers, you know, the penis-wielders, are also inoculated? A long-term study would be a beautiful thing to see before we started letting Merck test things on a bunch of prepubescent girls, eh? Or, you know, just go ahead, hope for the best.
They're well meaning, after all. Hoping for nothing but the best of health for all of us.
Actually, mercury is in most vaccines (Score:3, Insightful)
Mercury is present in most vaccine formulations, in at least "trace amounts". It seems that some people are able to process this without an issue, but there is suspicion that many of the vaccine-related issues that have been correlated to vaccinations may be a result of a lesser ability, or worse luck, in processing the mercury content. While this may end up being a red herring, considering that the FDA has recommended removing all but trace amounts of Thiomersal, I don't think we should ignore it.
It is certainly admirable to want to reduce the suffering of people through vaccination. At the same time, vaccinations should never be considered "safe". Just as with Tylenol, or Sudafed, the risks should always be conveyed to the potential recipient. They should be allowed, without fear of repercussion (some rumors floating about that public education will be denied for those who refuse it) to evaluate the risks and benefits and decide for themselves. Despite all of the drug company propaganda, you will be hard pressed to find someone who won't take a vaccine for a serious issue that they are at risk of injury from.
While you are at it, think about the fact that despite "8 1/2 years of research", no long term studies have been performed to rate the efficacy of this vaccine over time for the strains it is supposed to prevent. Most of the people arguing that the vaccine should be mandatory are also using straw-man arguments against "religious, anti-sex freaks". For them, it is a crusade against what they perceive to be ignorance. Maybe some people who object to the vaccine are ignorant. But blindly supporting it is just as ignorant, even if you can quote the drug company's research. Meanwhile, those of us who take a cautious route to medicating ourselves and our children will be railroaded for the sake of community immunity of a few strains of HPV, infection by which a very small percentage of people will develop cervical cancer. Very, very small.
Speaking of cautious, this is just another reason to look at increasing cleanliness in public restrooms. Not that any amount of cleanliness would convince me to sit down in one. Even if it is just a Gary Larson-esque "Didn't wash hands!" flashing light outside of the bathrooms (classic!).
Re:A little perspective first (Score:5, Insightful)
Anecdote (Score:2, Insightful)
This siutation is similiar, the religious get their panties all in a knot over nothing and will often be hippocrites and fools about a subject. They simply borrow the opinion of those who evangelize to them. Often without knowing it makes appear foolish and act like hippocrites.
Re:A little perspective first (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good idea - bad implementation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A little perspective first (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's great news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A little perspective first (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Anecdote (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Vaccinate the men too! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Do you even know what cervical caner is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just last week we had in a 50 year old woman who was diagnosed with a locally spread cervical cancer in her 20s. Very unusual case, but that's not the point. This woman had undergone extensive abdominal surgery and aggressive 1970s-style radiotherapy to her lower abdomen.
She shits into a bag on her side, and has lost both of her legs beneath the knees due to side effects of the radiotherapy on her pelvic vessels. She is infertile and has never had children.
With 90%+ certainty her lifetime of misery was A DIRECT RESULT of having sex with a man carrying the HPV virus in his semen. Perhaps only once. I never asked.
Get a FUCKING CLUE you goddamned prudish religious freaks. These are real problems we're talking about here.
Re:Do you even know what cervical caner is? (Score:1, Insightful)
"the more pertinent issue is that THIS IS THE FIRST VACCINE AVAILABLE THAT CAN ACTUALLY PREVENT CANCER!"
Bullshit. Hepatits B can cancer, not to mention can be aggregated for more liver damage if you get HepD and even further proneness to cancer. There are at least 2 vaccines available for HepB.
"Do you understand that, no? well argue your stupid little points about safety and how many it will protect."
This is typical of the health profession these days, people so ingrained in their professional that they unfortunately forget to look around to see the general effect of what they are promoting.
So I will. I'm male. Most people in this country have heterosexual relationships (bi or hetero). This vaccine has also been shown not only to be effective for likely cancer prevention, but MORE GENERALLY against those HPV specified, which also causes genital warts (which affects males). iow, women get this largely from men. So, please explain why this discriminatory policy also does not have it so that all men/boys also be vaccinated? Despite the efficacy studies having already done showing it's safe, the allowed and legal off-labeled use, as well as further research in the under-13yo category? Again, the point is that the vaccine works in males too, prevents genital warts, and their cancer transmission, not to mention the whole "herd immunity" issue, the very basics of disease spready and transission, so why not all males as well, since they are generally the very intermediaries of HPV?
"Do you want to actually improve the health of people?"
Do you?
Rule #1 is do no harm. There are no long-term studies yet; that is part of the FDA mandate to continue following the vaccine to show if there are any further issues. *I* don't want another episode like DES. (For those that don't know, DES was a drug give to prevent miscarriages, which was later shown to have a high cancer causing rate in the daughters of the recipients.)
Even the FDA knows this; they will certainly follow this vaccine as it is applied to large population groups. Effectively, what the states are mandating, not asking, but demanding if you want an education is to put females up as long-term study guinea pigs. This is, flat-out, unacceptable and abuse.
"If yes, then you need to favor this vaccine, no matter what your primitive superstitions say. Or your evidence-lacking vaccine fears are."
There is nothing primitive about saying that if you don't have sex, you very likely won't get HIV or HPV. It's rather fact. It's just unlikely that most people don't have sex (although, strangely, I know at least 3 people that didn't have sex until they were at least in their late 20s).
There is also something disingenuous about your argument, rather religious in the indoctrination of a doctor or care giver that health care does no wrong and that you are there to look out for us. Particularly given that another HPV vaccine is also nearing completion that protects against even more strains than Gardasil, and may be cheaper and easier to administer; it may be simple fact that a parent doesn't want to spend the money when something better and cheaper will come along shortly before their child becomes likely sexually active.
You also fail to address some other very simple facts here besides the resource/cost analysis and it being a sexually discriminatory vaccination policy despite the vaccine or virus isn't--why should people be blackmailed in this manner (aren't allowed to attend school or public resources for lack of vaccination).
Oh, that's right. Because you're a pathologist. Rights, policies, economic costs, legal matters--they certainly aren't your strong points. Health care isn't about simply treating people anymore, but listening and understanding the needs and beliefs of your patient--not lining them up and blackmailing them so you can stick needles in them to "protect" them.
Re:Do you even know what cervical caner is? (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I've read, there is no intention on the part of obstetricians to discontinue regular pap smears. In fact, it'd be irresponsible for them to stop, because doing so would be a virtual death sentence (in the form of a late diagnosis) to those affected by all the cervical cancer unabated by this vaccine.
Of course everyone wants a healthier, cancer-free populace. That's not really an issue. Medicine is about balance. Balancing risks and benefits to different treatments. Otherwise, we'd all have our appendices removed and be injected with every vaccine available from birth.
"First do no harm" in the world of evidence-based medicine is tricky business. For one must not only demonstrate that a particular treatment works but also that it doesn't cause more harm (both in an individual patient and in aggregate) than good. And this includes all the risks and benefits be assessed. For instance, a vaccine, even if it does save, 100 lives, effectively does no good if it causes fatal allergic reactions in 1:10,000 and is administered to a population of 1,000,000 people.
Unfortunately, risk-management pieces don't sell newspapers. Once it's mentioned that the vaccine in question prevents cancer the discussion is over. And that's unfortunate because we'd do well to practice caution with any newly developed drug intended to be administered to an entire populace if only for the lack of longitudinal studies.
-Grym
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
None of your analogies hold up.
HPV is different than Polio and it's different than small pox. HPV is rarely deadly for women that have regular checkups. In fact, the majority of women (and probably men if they could be tested more easily) have HPV. It is rare for someone that gets checkups to die, and its actually rare for the disease not to go away on its own. That's why it's much more of a choice in this situation. Polio and small pox either killed or left their victims severely disfigured - HPV is not as cruel...to everyone. All vaccinations include some inherent risk and this one mainly affects those who will not be going to the doctor to get a Pap smear regularly. A perfectly reasonable option is to let people decide for themselves. Unfortunately, like I said, it's unclear who would decide if a young person wants it, because no one is in a really good position to do so. The only thing that I think is clear is that the vaccination should be made free to anyone that wants it.
Re:A little perspective first (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing easy about never having sex, never being raped, and never getting married to a man who unwittingly picked up HPV. Nowhere did you profess to being an idiot, either. You didn't need to.
Re:Do you even know what cervical cancer is? (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, what was that line about physician heal thyself? Allow me to impart the clue. Here's what the flamewar that you decided to pile onto consisted of:
WebHostingGuy pointed out that the financial donations were quite small in the large scheme of things.
Dr. Spork claimed that the vaccine was likely to be a 100% cure for cervical cancer, which if you are a doctor, you know if false. There were some other statements about cancer being bad and so on.
Jhon disagreed with the 100% statement, pointing out that the vaccine only covers the dominant strains of HPV and noting that there are non-HPV related cervical cancers.
WebHostingGuy claimed that eliminating the Merck covered strains would be 100% effective.
Jhon once again noted that there are many strains of HPV, but concludes with, "You're statement that "only those few types of HPV cause cervical cancer" is untrue. There are many. It would, however, be true to say that most hpv-linked cancers are casued by 4 different strains of HPV."
AC ("I'm a pathologist!!1!") goes off on a straw man, claiming that because Jhon pointed out that the vaccine won't stop all cervical cancer that he obviously wants people to have cancer, and then proceeds to go with an specious ad homimem attack claiming that Jhon follows primitive superstitions.
You then add your "clue" by ranting about how unpleasant cancer is, concluding with your contribution to the specious religion attack. Thanks so much for adding your wisdom. Perhaps you should read for context first next time?
Re:A little perspective first (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with your stats, but I don't see how it lends itself to backing this policy; in fact, I find your post stunningly stupid overall. Average means exactly that--average. There is a difference between average and absolute, which lends itself to why mandate and making it available are two totally different things the governor, yourself, and most posters don't seem to be considering.
If something is average, why are you MANDATING THAT ALL GIRLS be forced to have this shot at a certain age? We don't demand the pill be given to girls when they hit 14 just because they become sexually active. We don't demand that they get depro shots either. That's first their choice as a person, as a patient, and better, it's a choice that they make, right or wrong, based on their life's events.
A far smarter policy would make this shot available to girls, not make it a point of overall, absolute policy.
It is not up to the state to decide and demand, or blackmail and make contingent upon, someone's personal health decisions. Not to mention, this policy, made by big corporation lobbying, or male goverors, is just putting personal sexual choice and health decisions back 3 decades.
Not to mention going after female juveniles; imagine if the governor had come out to say that, "If you want to hold a job in this state and are female, you must be innoculated with Gardasil."
Would you care to explain why a girl who is 14yo, who has not had sex and has no intention of having sex in the present, should go on the pill? Makes no sense; she has no reason to be on it, there are risks to the pill.
Would you care to explain why a person who is 16yo, who has not had sex and has no intention of having sex, should get this vaccine? Makes no sense either.
There are risks involved with this vaccine. There are future vaccines also in the pipeline where no concurrent study has been done on efficacy crossing the 2 vaccines; the future one is scheduled to pass and protects against more than Gardasil. Are YOU going to be prepared to tell someone that, because the state mandated you have the vaccine, a better shot in the near future that came availability is less effective, just because you want to protect them now, when they have no intention of having sex in that meantime?
See this for what it is--a proposed MANDATE TO ALL GIRLS, worse, who want to be educated in the public system (thus you don't get educated if you don't get it, and you likely might not have options to get educated elsewhere being in the public system aka private school). It's sexist. It's discriminatory. It's an invasion of rights both to juveniles and to individuals. It's class discriminatory. And it's even anti-education (get this drug/vaccine, or we don't allow you access to this public service and if you disagree and cannot afford to send your child elsewhere than state public school, we will penalize you parents financially and with jail if you can't afford said mandated education for your kid).
Re:What do they think? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is some seriously fucked up shit!
Re:Vaccinate the men too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's true in the case of casually-communicated diseases, which jump from host to host indiscriminately.
But HPV basically requires sexual contact in order to be transmitted. Vaccinating all women would isolate the disease to a few populations among gay men (for whom the virus is much less risky) and transmission from bisexual men to women (which would be relatively rare).
I'm not saying that men shouldn't be vaccinated as well, just that it might be jumping the gun a bit to suggest that Merck was intentionally trying to preserve the disease in order to maintain profits.
Anybody remember Thalidomide? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think such vaccinations should not be pushed upon the people, especially if only one company sells it. It would give them a monopoly on this vaccine, a government funded monopoly for that.
I think we should first test it out further before getting the whole population vaccined. Once it's a generic product, then we should maybe recommend it highly to everybody. I hate to have a government forced vaccination, kinda like Hitler had the Jews, gays and certain religious groups tagged.