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It's not a cancer vaccine
Mike Ahlf
One has to love the marketing department of Merck; somehow, they're managing to get a newly-FDA-approved vaccine marketed as a "cancer vaccine."
It's
this one.
Merck, in case anyone didn't know , was a major, major funding source for Rick Perry (aka Governor Zoolander, Governor Goodhair, and Traitor Extraordinaire depending on which radio shows you listen to) during his last reelection campaign.
Rick Perry just sidestepped the Texas State Legislature and required that all schoolgirls - because one oddity about this "vaccine" is that it doesn't work for boys - receive this vaccine. By "executive order", which is the equivalent of an Imperial Decree from the Texas Governor.
There are multiple problems with this, of course. First, problems with the vaccine itself:
#1 - despite the Merck false-advertising campaign, it is not a "cancer vaccine." It is a preventative measure that protects partially against a very few HPV strains which have been linked by certain studies to later onset of cervical cancer.
#2 - Unlike the current vaccinations for children that are required by law, HPV and Cervical Cancer have two very important distinctions: First of all that they are not transmitted by air, and secondly that they are not transmitted by casual touch. The fact that it is transmitted to young children at all is brought on by the fact that the virus can be transmitted
in utero.
#3 - the drug is still under patent, and no investigations as to the long-term possibilities for problems of the vaccine have been investigated yet.
Now, to problems with the way this is being done:
#1 - Merck is bankrolling campaigns to do this all across the nation. At a price of $360 per vaccination (it requires 3 shots, each spaced 2 months apart), they will make major bank already, but even MORE if they can make it mandatory.
#2 - Merck's contributions to Rick Perry, and to other people closely connected to Rick Perry.
#3 - Many parents may have moral or indeed medical reasons to NOT want their children to be given this vaccine (a child with a history of reactions to other vaccines, for example). Most parents will probably buy this voluntarily for their kids. Making it mandatory, however, completely takes away their right of choice.
Is the vaccine probably a good idea? For most teenage girls, likely so. However, there are plenty of people who will probably have serious moral, religious, or other objections to it. And while cancer is a dangerous thing and so are STD's, the fact is that the initials STD stand for something that does NOT pose a general threat to kids who are just going to school and back in the same way that Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, or other things that we require vaccination for do.
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Observations
After reading this and the post-and-comments over at Asymmetrical Information (
http://www.janegalt.net/arc...), I discussed this with Camille. She informs me of the following:
1) HPV is the common cold of the STD world. Over 80% of people will have it at some point in there life. It lays dormant for years so most people don't realize they have it until or unless it becomes something more.
2) The connection between HPV and cervical cancer is not merely a link and it's not merely suggested by "certain studies", HPV causes cervical cancer. Your wording makes it sound (to me) more like the link between obesity and heart attacks later in life. Prevent a person from getting HPV, you have pretty much prevented them from getting cervical cancer.
3) Even if it doesn't work 100% and it doesn't attack all HPV, it attacks those strains of HPV that cause the supermajority of cervical cancer (70%) very effectively (100% in the study). Your wording drastically understates its effectiveness.
4) They may not pose a threat to kids going to and from school, but do pose a threat to most female adults and the best time to head this off is before they risk carrying the virus. Booster shots may be required, but so far so good.
5) The HPV virus and cervical cancer do not travel in utero.
I'm concerned about the costs, I don't trust Governor Perry, and I think parents should be able to opt their kids out, but on the whole I don't think I quite find this to be the sham that you do. This is something that is going to do a lot of people a lot of good and I'm not sure I really like the idea of leaving people to do things like this on their own because most won't realize they should until it's too late.
RAW:
1) There are more than 60 types of HPV. This vaccine works against precisely four of them.
2) As far as "pretty much preventing" cervical cancer, not all cervical cancer is caused by HPV, which is a problem; by telling people it is a "cancer vaccine" they're more likely to skip the other checkups to check for cancer that wasn't HPV-caused.
3) From the documents I've seen, it's very effective... at preventing four of the possible 60 varieties of HPV you may catch.
4) The problem I have with making it "mandatory" is that it's a false promise connected with some very misleading if not outright false advertising: it's not going to cure the spread of HPV, it might just make the most common HPV virus a different one that's not covered by the vaccine.
5) see
http://www.metrokc.gov/heal...
"Infants born to infected mothers may become infected" is right on that page.
The problems I have so far are: Merck themselves conducted the studies (and there aren't independent studies or long-term studies yet), possible corruption/payoffs to make this "mandatory" in Texas.
Where you say "because most won't realize they should", it'd be easy enough to have a mandatory information packet or even mandatory information given out (say, at teacher/parent conference night) on the drug, without taking the decision out of the hands of the parents. Then again, that's where my libertarian streak comes into play; I really hate when government says "you must do this for your own good" on things that don't meet very specific criteria, and this definitely doesn't meet my criteria.
1) Yes, but two HPV's cause 70% of cervical cancer.
2) Cervical cancer caused by something other than HPV is extremely rare. A google of "cervical cancer is caused by" turns up no other cause (
http://www.google.com/searc...). The only qualifiers I see are "Essentially all" or "almost all"... I don't even see "most." I don't disagree that Merck's PR may be misleading and women should certainly continue to get paps because of the other HPV strains that cause cervical cancer. But while they're overselling it, you're underselling it.
3) See #1. This isn't going to block 12% of HPV-caused cervical cancer, it would block 70%. The fact that it's only four of sixty strains is somewhat misleading.
4) Preventing 70% of cervical cancer cases is a pretty big deal to that 70%. Yes, cervical cancer caused by strains other than the two primary ones will persist, but stopping those two dead in their tracks would be huge. Worth making it mandatory? That's a subjective value judgment call.
5) Interesting, I'll pass that along.
RAW,
3) It's not going to block 70% of HPV-caused cervical cancer, it's going to cause one of those other strains to become dominant, and people who've had the vaccine are going to assume they are "protected" from both HPV and cervical cancer until it's too late.
4) Preventing 70% of cervical cancer cases is a pretty big deal to that 70%, but again, the number isn't 70%.
First, the vaccine does you no good if you are already infected with HPV; the damage is done.
Second, as I stated earlier, the good made up (in preventing infection by these specific strains) will likely be lost as newer strains take their place. The medical community is seeing this a lot lately, as the strains of a particular disease that were targeted by former vaccines/medicines are replaced by ones that are resistant to the normal method of treatment.
Third, it's not going to be 70% even so, as people who've been vaccinated will assume they are "safe" and start skipping out on screenings as a result.
Now I want to state very clearly so I'm not misinterpreted: I'm not against the vaccine. I agree with you that the vaccine can do a heck of a lot of good.
What I am against is government intrusion into people's lives, and against a very dishonest, deceitful, and irresponsible advertising campaign by Merck that vastly overstates what their drug can do and is going to lead people who get the vaccine into a very false sense of security.
/It's not going to block 70% of HPV-caused cervical cancer, it's going to cause one of those other strains to become dominant.../
When the vaccine was first created, it only took care of one strain. Then they picked up a second. If another strain becomes more threatening, more can be added to the shot. But for now you fight the enemy you got and there is something particularly nasty about these two strains.
/Third, it's not going to be 70% even so, as people who've been vaccinated will assume they are "safe" and start skipping out on screenings as a result./
Probably, but these are the same people we're supposed to trust to take three shots in the first place for something that they have no reason to believe will be an issue for some time to come. There are some things you can't account for, I guess.
/First, the vaccine does you no good if you are already infected with HPV; the damage is done./
That's a good reason to do the vaccinations early, which is one of the problems you had with it (because it doesn't threaten kids. I was referring to future cases. (note that I'm not referring to you with this comment, but I gotta say it anyway: it's amazing how many people love to talk about preventative medicine until they're asked to have their kids take a shot for something they don't have)
We don't entirely disagree on the issue of state coersion as I think there should be an "opt out" (though I think that if they do they should pay for some other kid's vaccine to avoid people opting out to save a buck). And we agree, largely, on Governor Perry.
In any case, I adamently agreed with your post when I first read it. Then I read more about it and believe that you dramatically understated the connection between HPV and cancer, left out important details about the specific strains that this targets (leading an uninformed reader to believe that this would attack 12% - the number if risks were evenly distributed among the different strains - rather than the the strains responsible for a supermajority of cervical cancer), and suggested that it won't really even stop the strains it's targeting. I object to that a whole lot more than I object to your conclusion.
Anyhow, my main reason for commenting was to clear up some misconceptions I had reading your original post. I feel that I have done so and so you can have last word.
RAW,
you've said things rather well, but there's still one thing I need to address:
=
/First, the vaccine does you no good if you are already infected with HPV; the damage is done./
That's a good reason to do the vaccinations early, which is one of the problems you had with it (because it doesn't threaten kids. I was referring to future cases. (note that I'm not referring to you with this comment, but I gotta say it anyway: it's amazing how many people love to talk about preventative medicine until they're asked to have their kids take a shot for something they don't have)
=
There is a difference in degree with a lot of preventative medicine.
For example, I agree with immunizations for just about every life-threatening or health-threatening disease that is readily communicable. That is to say anything that's communicable either by air, or by casual touch.
I support, for instance, the usual course of school vaccinations we have today. I would support the government making Hepatitis-B and Hepatitis-C vaccines mandatory, because they are transmittable by casual touch.
The difference in Herpes (aka HPV) is that the vector is another degree removed. Do I think that it's not a good idea to have a teenager vaccination? Of course not. If I had a teen daughter, you can be certain that she'd be getting the vaccine.
However, I'm strongly against - because it is not a thing that your kid can just give to every other kid in class by their mere presence - forcing parents to enrich Merck's pockets by $360 just so Rick Perry can claim to be "doing something" against cancer.
Like I said, I wasn't referring to you on that comment. Nor was I talking about government mandated vaccines. I'm talking about the hippies in Austin and Boulder that complain that the medical establishment is fixated on cures rather than preventative medicine and yet are suspicious of any and all vaccines and don't immunize their kids. That's not you, it's too many people that I know.
And I'm almost positive that herpes and HPV are two distinct virii.
Doublechecked and you're correct; Herpes (HSV) is distinct from HPV; Herpes is open sores, HPV is warts. Both can lie dormant and both aren't "curable" as such (viral infections can go "dormant" but you can never be sure a reoccurrence isn't on its way). The two are often mentioned in medical pamphlets because they're easy to confuse with each other and both are incurable as such.
As for the hippies in Austin/Boulder, they're all over the place. The scary part is that they breed. ;)
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