<font color=skyblue>Merck, one of the super-giants of medicines, backed down from their lobbying in Washington which would make it a requirement that all nine year old girls get the cervical cancer vaccine. Texas has already wrote it into state law, I hear, because Merck pushed hardest there with their lobbying. However, none of the rest of us have to be forced to, a relief for some of us that saw the requirement as nothing more than a way that this company was trying to ensure they'd make more money.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Cervical cancer is contracted by sexual intercourse like any other STD, and since kids in their preteens are potential for practicing unsafe sex, Merck wanted every girl to be vaccinated for a cancer that would potentially result from that practice.

Religious protestors said that giving kids a vaccine for an STD would make them feel that they no longer had to worry about STDs, especially the younger girls that might not even understand that cervical cancer is the least likely to contract than most other STDs. Maybe they'd feel immune to danger, even to a degree, so they'd be more likely to engage in sexual activity.

For the rest of us that were angry about being forced to get it, we thought that something like this is not like Measles, Mumps, and other diseases that can be taken to school and passed around the class merely for being near other kids. This cancer would only be contracted by chance and that chance was dependent on sexual activity that may not even occur (face it, there are some girls out there that either do not want to or cannot get it on with somebody).

Also...I have seen no proof that a lesbian can get cervical cancer from her partner so to force a drug on somebody that would not need the benefit of that drug to me was against their rights somehow. </font>

The only way to eliminate something is by complete and utter vaccination, no exceptions.

I can't see any reason why it should not be as required as any other vaccine. It's capable of spreading to anyone and it can potentially have both horribly unpleasant and lethal consequences.

The argument that it makes more kids likely to practice unsafe sex is ridiculous, since when has any teen ever sat down and thought, when he didn't have any condoms: "Gee, the danger of knocking up my girlfriend/catching some STD is present! I had better go take a cold shower instead of getting my sex on!"?

What about children who are molested? Shouldn't they be immune if the molester happens to be infected? It'd just be one more thing to pile on top of all the other crap they'd be going through.

This is also not a cervical cancer vaccine, it's an HPV vaccine.

That's just a tad more than cervical cancer.

Whatever Merck's motives(Current bets are on: Making fat loads of cash.), complete and utter immunization of all children would be ideal.

EDIT: Additionally, there'd never be a large enough number of early life vaccinations unless it's mandatory. Most parents would like to believe that their little girls are going to be sweet and virtuous and never have sex until they're, say, about 31 or so, married, and out of the house. But fact is most of them are likely to have sex when they're around half that age, nothing to do for it, it's been that way ever since the dawn of human history. No age has been more or less "moral" than another, so it's not something that can be educated out of people. I honestly think that most parents are going to delude themselves into thinking their daughters will not have a sex life and therefore will not need the vaccine, and I find it unlikely that a 16-year-old girl will report to her parents that she's going to lose her virginity in the back of a Camaro this weekend so she'd like her HPV vaccine now, thank you very much.

[ 02-21-2007, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Ok, but if it's going to be mandated as a law, then it should be free. There are enough mandated things people here have to pay for, such as car insurance. You can drive for 50 years with no mishaps, but you are required by law to make somebody else richer. Is Merck going to be liable if a child is vaccinated, and still gets the disease? HPV, according to the tv commercials I've seen lately, is the most common thing that occurs in women, except maybe that time of the month, yes, I'll probably regret that line, so if the virus is contracted, and does lead to cervical cancers, inspite of the vaccine, which on tv, won't prevent all kinds of cervical cancer, are we still going to hold Merck responsible? If no, then the vaccination shouldn't be legally required. To me, that's like requiring somebody that's never used drugs in their life to go to drug rehab, while paying for it out of pocket.

The measles vaccine prevents you from getting measles, the same is true for the smallpox vaccine. If Merck is pushing this drug to prevent HPV, and thereby prevent cervical cancer, then if somebody that was vaccinated gets either one, they should be held accountable.

<font color=skyblue>Robert is right...and I should have covered that part of the argument in my post.

As for your stand on it, Purple...What is Denmark doing to save their girls from this cancer? (This is not an American disease). Will they anytime soon be making the drug a requirement or will it be optional, or what? Would you be willing to send a letter to your supreme powers indicating your desire that all girls be made to get this vaccine? Would there be even one girl or woman in Denmark that would be angry at you for your meddling in their life? </font>

What!!! are we 100% sure about this claim? The data being pushed down here is that there is an increased risk for people with human papilloma virus ... WAY diffrent than saying 'Cervical cancer IS contracted by' anyone got the real facts on this or is it just the religous right wing on the march again [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

[ 02-21-2007, 03:18 PM: Message edited by: wellard ]

Probably closer to drug company propaganda.

What!!! are we 100% sure about this claim? The data being pushed down here is that there is an increased risk for people with human papilloma virus ... WAY diffrent than saying 'Cervical cancer IS contracted by' anyone got the real facts on this or is it just the religous right wing on the march again [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]<font color=skyblue>Honestly, I don't really know now. I thought at first that all cases were related to an STD-type way of getting it, but now I am not so sure that it is exclusive to that, per what Purple posted. I'll have to Google it later. </font>

<font color=skyblue>Okay...I did my homework so I could understand more about this topic before trying to continue with something I did not understand.</font>

Source: WEBMD.com

<font color=skyblue>Okay, now I see that the cancer comes from that HPV infection, and that the best way to get that infection is with sexual contact with an infected partner. However, it seems that not everybody that has the infection gets the cancer. Also, it appears that regular trips to the OB-GYN is an effective way to prevent the virus from killing anyone with the cancer.

So to bring it back to questions...does this vaccine prevent "all" types of the virus infection, even the non-sexual ones, or is this vaccine only good to prevent against the most commonly occurring version?

Is this a problem that other countries will be addressing now that there is a vaccine or is the world waiting to see if this vaccine is potentially deadly to a person's health in the long term first? (Since this is a new vaccine, who's to say that not every girl that gets it runs the risk of 1 in 5 developing some kind of problem or negative reaction to the drug?)

My new main point...it was too early to assume that this drug was safe for everybody to be forced into using it when we don't know what the long term looks like yet.

Remember this...Merck has really screwed up in the past. The last recall of a drug that was found hazardous to a person's life was a Merck drug. The FDA let something go through without checking it out well enough, and people died!</font>

Getting there Larry ... but still confusing some facts (not delibratly, that is not your style) :D

" Cervical infection with HPV is the primary risk factor for cervical cancer." note the languague. Primary risk does not in any way mean it causes Cervical cancer only that there is higher risk of getting the cancer over other causes if you have a cervical infection with one of 30 out of 80 types of HPV which may be caught as a sexually transmitted disease.

Strewth poor women :(
Between the bullshit statements by the religous right wing and the propaganda by the drug companies it is going to be hard for ladies to get the correct information.

There was a thread on Ironworks about this a few months back.

The Australian government is starting a vaccination programme for all schoolgirls next year. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[ 02-21-2007, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: wellard ]

<font color=skyblue>Thanks for pointing that out to me, wellard. I've had trouble in college literature courses with reading something and not getting the full gist of it like I was suppose to, so I am not surprised by your post.

Referring to your mention "propaganda by the drug companies"...this is most likely the cause of my misinformation or bias viewpoint based on what I thought I knew before posting here and reading up on it afterward. I am sure that the TV ads were trying to convince me that my daughters would die of cervical cancer if I did not get her this vaccine. I think I responded the way they wanted me to, and if that was not their intention, that is still the impression that I have from viewing their ads. That is why I said what I did before going to WebMD and reading up on it a bit more, and also by being educated by your posts.

Now. Let's not forget that my original reason for posting this was to let everyone know that Merck has decided not to pursue the requirement agenda now, and have dropped their lobbying. They say it is because of bad press, but I just do not trust drug companies and would not put it past them to know that there is some harm that could come from the drug and have only recently discovered it, and decided that they'd be in a lot of trouble if this were forced on people...so maybe they have decided to take the quiet road for a while...

Another idea as to why they have decided not to pursue this issue and it just now occurred to me...the INSURANCE AGENCIES have bigger lawyers and the insurance people have come out and said NO! We will not pay for this drug...

Or maybe Merck realizes that there are tons of people in the US that have no insurance at all and so the bill for the shot would come out of pocket, but what if people did not get it because they were too poor, or what if they got it and then you could not find them to bill them (ie any illegal immigrant).

I think Merck pulled out for money reasons...not because they were afraid that they were getting bad press...or maybe my first idea is right and they are investigating a potential risk that only recently showed up.

Opinions?</font>

Merck wouldn't back out out of the goodness of its heart. In my oh-so-humble opinion, pharmaceutical companies are worse than the tobacco companies... I sense there's something at work here that we don't know about.

That being said, I'm torn about the whole thing. I don't think vaccination should really be a requirement until we know long-term effects, but I also think it's important to be vaccinated. I suppose the only people who lose out here are the young women, and the parents, who lack the proper information or wisdom to make an informed decision about vaccination.

from the original article "Merck said it will continue other education efforts to encourage widespread use of Gardasil" reading between the lines that says to me that they are not backing down on the promotion of the drug just changing there tactics.

Dont get me wrong I agree with you that drug company actions should always be held with suspicion and contempt but I do not read into this a backdown.

A couple of points in here...

Other "mandated" vaccinations are not necessarily free. You may be able to go to a county health clinic and get them for free or minimal charges, but if you have your doctor do it during a visit, there's a cost.

I put mandated in quotes because I'm not so sure it is. I think there are trade-offs... like schools that won't let you in unless you've been vaccinated. Not the same as a mandate, but a close cousin.

It would certainly be interesting to have been a fly on the wall during Merck's discussions about whether to continue lobbying. Was it because of pressure? Bad press? The belief that enough lobbying's been done?

I mean, as a dad, the thought of my daughter dying from cancer doesn't really appeal to me. And here there's a vaccine that can apparently eliminate on of those forms of cancer and save her life? What's the value today of a hug ten or twenty years from now? A whole lot more than $20, $50, or $100 bucks... or whatever the cost of the vaccine is.

As for drug companies and issues with their drugs, is there one drug company who's never had a drug recalled? I'm not sure... and while it's worthy to note their past, it's not a complete indicator of the future.

I'll be following the developments, to be sure.

<font color= 7fff00> This quote is the sort of disgusting mindset that almost beggers belief .. </font>

"Alan Kaye, chairman of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition is hopeful that the vaccine will be universally used. He said: "I don't think anyone wants to stop a cancer vaccine." But some things are more important than saving lives. To some parents, promoting premarital chastity is one of these. Their reasoning is that if their daughters feel protected from one sexually transmitted disease (STD) out of the dozens of STDs that are in wide circulation, then there might be a slight increase in their level of sexual experimentation. It is a judgment call for the parents whether risking that increase among millions of teens is more important than saving about seven American women's lives a day.

The battle between conservative Christian groups and public health groups will still happen. However, it will probably be centered at the individual state level over attempts to require vaccination for all female students."


<font color= 7fff00> I shudder that people can put their daughters life at risk over this issue because of ignorant religious bullshit like that. No wonder Merck is having to review it's policy. </font>

[ 02-22-2007, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: wellard ]

Ah, I know how you feel mate. These are the same people that didn't want condoms in school because it would "promote" sexual activity. As a parent, I'd rather my daughter practiced safe sex as opposed to just taking chances. Of course, my daughter is in her 20's now, but the fact is, that's how I felt about it once she was old enough to think about it. There is no bright side to teens having sex, but the absolute best negative consequence is pregnancy, and hey, we don't really need that either.

If a vaccination is to be compulsory, then it should be provided free of charge.

Kids these days are not completely stupid, but when it comes to sexual activity, there isn't much that will scare them off, even those of us that believe we know the dangers and are cautious, still feel the same way all teenagers do (well im not a teenager anymore, but I was a few weeks ago :D )

Anyways, I think that despite the company's intentions, the vacination can have some major benefits. But I also believe things like that should be free of charge.

[ 02-25-2007, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Hivetyrant ]

Capitalists, socialists... we all want to get to the same place [img]smile.gif[/img] One group wants it for free, and the other wants to be paid to take others there... [img]smile.gif[/img]

When you say "free", you mean subsidized. Rest assured, someone, somewhere, is paying.

True Bung, but if I may try and clarify Hive's and Mems point is that it should be the government paying for it so that a child does not suffer because her parents are poor.

I am undecided about making it compulsory though.

I'm pretty decided. If it's cumpulsory, then the government pays, and if there are "unfortunate" side effects, then Merck pays. Imagine that class action lawsuit.

I understand, Wellard... but if the government pays, it's still not free. You're paying for it in some other way.... through taxes, most likely. So be prepared to raise your taxes to pay for all the free vaccinations.

Someone, somewhere, is paying.

life should not have a price ;)

but if cold hard cash is important to you when discussing health .....

This will be an investment for the future. It will be a lot cheaper than giving free health care to all the women with cancer. Win - Win for everyone :D

Life should have a price. After all, that's what work is for, for those of us that can. However, that doesn't mean that the populace should be compelled to make rich people richer. I suppose that all the "contributions" made by lobbyists could be applied to pay for mandated treatments, and that would be a definite win/win.

Color me a capitalist [img]smile.gif[/img]

Don't get caught up on the cash aspect, Wellard. As you should see from my posts above, I'm in favor of mandating its use. If I can rule out a form of cancer for my daughter, I'll do it. I'm all for saving lives.

My point, however, is that people make the logic jump from "It's free" to "There's no cost". The correct logic jump is from "It's free" to "Someone else will pay the cost". TANSTAAFL. Someone, somewhere, has to subsidize it for it to be "free".

That doesn't mean I support the position that if you can't pay for it, you can't have it and you get to live with the threat of this cancer. Not at all. I've got no problem subsidizing it for those too poor to be able to pay for it.

Here in lovely west Michigan, kids have to have their vaccinations for various childhood diseases before they're allowed in the public schools.

You've got three options for these: your doctor, a local med center, or the County health department. Each one charges different amounts, with the county being cheapest. It's partially subsidized, and perhaps completely subsidized for the poorest among us.

Interestingly, those vaccinations aren't really mandated. You don't *have* to get vaccinated; you don't *have* to attend public schools, either. It's similar to what the US government did in the 1970s with lower speed limits. States didn't *have* to comply... they just wouldn't get federal highway funds if they didn't.

A number of pharmacies around here have started offering basic children's prescriptions for either free or a minimal charge of $4. It started with Wal-Mart, and it's continuing with others who jump on the bandwagon. The pharmacies are subsidizing those prescriptions... they're paying for them. They're also banking on you doing enough other business with them to cover the cost of those presecriptions. "Free" means "I don't pay". It doesn't mean "Nobody pays".

And as an aside, we don't have free health care here... every election, someone's trying to figure out how to subsidize more health care without visibly raising taxes to pay for it [img]smile.gif[/img] I truly hope they find a way... but so far, nothing :(

*edit* Slight tweaking for what I meant :(

[ 03-02-2007, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

As mother to a daughter who falls within the age range given, I must say NO to the madate that she be vaccinated. As the granddaughter of a woman who died when she was 39 of cervical cancer - she had had only one sexual partner, my grandfather, so it is unlikely she fell under the "multiple partners and at risk" category, I would also say NO to this vaccination for a couple reasons.

1. Merck pushed this one through FDA approval much more quickly than other drugs. It is also the only one of its kind, at least in the US, and when you combine the strangely quick approval and the resulting lack of long-term testing / study, how do we know this is safe OR effective in the long term? Because it killed cancer cells in a petri dish? Because a drug company said so?

2. Merck stands to make a LOT of money on this one since they hold the only patent on Guardisil. The vaccintation currently must be given in three (3) shots at just over $100 per shot. Most insurance companies do not cover it. Ok, two problems with that: it deliberately leaves out lower-middle to lower class individuals - the same who may be at higher risk due to other factors. It is also one of (I have read it is THE) most expensive of all vaccines. Why?

3. This vaccine purports to protect young women from HPV which MAY mutate and cause UP to 70% of cervical cancer cases. There are 80 types of HPV. Does this vaccine protect against all types of HPV? Virii are known to mutate in order to survive; will the vaccine be viable in six months, a year, five years?

Too many 'might' and 'up to' and "oh my gosh, how can you be an unfeeling barbarian not to immediately jump in and have your daughter vaccinated" for me. It needs testing, it needs study, it needs PROOF that its claims are valid and irrefutable. It does NOT need religious groups ballyhooing, drug execs spouting bs in defense or the general public under misbegotten ideas due to less-than-enough information to make an intelligent decision.

I protested the Hep vaccine when the school barred CK from kindergarten because she hadn't had it. When I researched the vaccine, I discovered that the variety of Hep it protects against is ONLY transmitted by sexual contact or tainted blood. The vaccine is now given *before* a child hits kindergarten. Despite my arguments that the vaccine 1) made no logical sense to give a 5 year old and 2) it put my daughter at unknown risk in the future, I finally relented so she could attend school. It was a waste since I pulled her out to homeschool the next year due to the school's ineptitude anyhow.

I love my daughter. I love her enough to demand better for her than half-baked politiking by a drug company trying to sell a drug they can't even show works or is safe down the road.

<font color=skyblue>Garnet...thank you SO much for spelling out all three of those points because they really hit home as to my family's feelings on the subject.

I say you are 100% right.

</font>

I respect your position and thoughts, Garnet, and I'd like to offer some counter-thoughts.


"Much more quickly", "strangely quick", "lack of long-term testing"... these are subjective terms, and not objective. The phase III trials involved 25,000 people in 33 countries (as of October 2005). It was 100% effective in preventing cancer - high grade precancer and non-invasive cancer associated with its two primary HPV strains. Apparently, 100% prevention is almost unheard of in these kinds of tests.

In the meantime, more than 500,000 cases are diagnosed worldwide every year, and around 275,000 women a year die from cervical cancer, which is the second deadliest cancer (breast cancer is first). And Glaxo SmithKline is working on its own version of the same vaccine, to be called Cervarix, so the "only game around" argument falls apart shortly.


Price should be equal to cost plus margin. Biologics, or vaccines derived from living organisms, are expensive to make, and Guardasil is apparently one of the most expensive ones to make. That means that while they may bring in a lot of revenue, they don't make a lot of money on it.

With competition comes reduction in price. And I find it interesting (here I go again!) that people complain about the price, and do not consider the cost. Merck also spent over ten years working on this vaccine (based on their partnership with CSL Limited related to technology used in the vaccine in 1995). Would you spend ten years developing something and expect to get no compensation? That's part of the reason for patents, so that companies will make that investment. It's also part of the reason doctors are having an issue with stocking it - they aren't getting reimbursed enough from insurance companies to cover their own costs.


I don't get the "UP to 70%". Those two strains are responsible for 70 percent of the cases. The rest (as many as 100, depending on your sourcE) cause the other 30%. Do you want to wait until every single strain is addressed? 70% is a very nice first step. And yes, viruses can mutate. That's why we have to keep developing new methods to address them.


Hopefully I'm not spouting the "unfeeling barbarian" prose out there [img]smile.gif[/img] I'll agree on more testing because you can never really have enough, and more testing is going on. However, it's already had a lot of testing (a lot more than the "1000 girls" that I keep seeing), and medical boards in Europe, Mexico, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil and two countries in Africa have approved its use.



To put on the grim reaper hat, and having a 9 year old daughter myself, I don't anticipate her getting sexually active for a long, long time, or her needing blood for any reason. So I can easily say it still doesn't make sense to administer a Hep vaccine.

However, as much as I don't like to think about it, there are morons out there who prey on children, and sexual activity may not be entirely her choice. In 2005, there were 191,670 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assaults according to the 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey (not including those under 12, which are not reported). About 44% of rape victims are under 18, and 80% are under 30.

And on the other side, your daughter (and mine!) are one accident away from needing a blood transfusion.... :(


No argument there [img]smile.gif[/img] I've seen bad teachers before...

And I love my daughter too. They have, however, shown it works (100% effective for 25,000 females in 33 countries in phase III), as studies have already been done on a large multi-country scale.

And no one can *prove* that anything is safe down the road... you have to get down the road before you know it. That means, realistically, long after both you and I are dead. And our daughters, potentially. No matter how far you get (3 years, 7, 15, 35...), someone is *always* going to say that you might still have an issue crop up. And they're absolutely right... you *could*. In the meantime, 275,000 women a year perish from a vaccinable disease.

I know that I'm not willing to wait. It's my daughter's life, not mine, that I'm dealing with. And in fact, based on your post, I did a whole lot more research that led to the thoughts and opinions above. I'm more convinced now that it's a good idea.

Mandate? Maybe not. Make available through insurance and subsidies? You betcha.

Thanks for making me think more!

I have a serious question here, how can anything be said to be 100% effective in preventing cancer? How did they know the women/girls they treated were going to have cancer? Time machine? I'm no rocket scientist, but not smoking isn't a 100% guarentee that you won't get lung cancer. 99.99 maybe, but not 100%.

According to the commercials I see on TV, a lot of the strains of HPV that cause the cancer might even go away with no treatment. They don't claim that the vaccine will protect against all forms of HPV, nor all cervical cancers. The little disclaimer thing at the end even states that flat out.

Anyway, my point is; to say that something is 100% effective in preventing cervical cancer is, to me, misleading, since they even say it's not on the commercials. At 300.00 per individual, I'd say they are going to more than recoup their investments, they have probably already done that. I don't know what the best course of action is. My daughter is beyond the age of Dad telling her what to do, and I trust her judgement enough, no matter what she decides, but to mandate making a drug company rich, on something that may fall well short of what people expect from it, "100% effective at preventing cervical cancer". I just can't help but think about all the commercials on tv about whether or not you took this drug, or that drug, and have these things going on, you may be entitled to money. All from drug companies slipping in "under the wire" with the FDA.

Where that comes from, Robert, is the actual testing that was done. And like many things, past performance is no guarantee of future results. But if you get a good enough sample size, you can predict the effect on the entire population. Sometimes, the population even behaves like you predict [img]smile.gif[/img]

In one of the stage III tests of 10,559 women, exactly none of the vaccinated group developed any of the cancerous or precancerous cells -- they didn't develop cancer. 21 of the women in the control group did.

A second follow-on study of 11,502 women had one develop cancer in the vaccinated group, and 36 in the control group.

I can't seem to find the results, but I think that the one who developed cancer got it from a strain other than the two that the vaccine protects against.

And in a side note, I found a site here that says that the original researchers behind the vaccine are now working on a second method for producing it... from tobacco plants, no less! This second version will apparently cost around $2 per dose instead of $100 per dose for the current vaccine. So at $360 per individual (using the $120 street price), they're only bringing home $60 in profit. For pharma, that's small.

My question remains, however. Just because the injected group didn't develop cancerous cells doesn't mean they would have with out the vaccine. At any rate, my sole position on this is that it should be left up to individual choice, not made compulsary. If they make 60 dollars a dose, and 100 million vaccines are mandated world wide, we have just mandated making Merck 6 billion dollars. Yes, that's billion. If we are going to mandate paying x amount of dollars to somebody, we could mandate that everybody in that group pay me just .50 cents. I'm still having a hard time with my Social Security stuff, and This would get me out of my mom's pocket, and paying my own bills/medical bills. I might even have some money left over to live well in my misery.

The presence of the control group shows that the vaccine was the reason the vaccinated group did not get cancer. As long as the participants were randomly assigned to the control and vaccine group, then the only difference between the groups is the vaccine. Random assignment ensures that every other thing that may differ between the groups is equal across the groups - i.e. both groups have equal likelihood of developing cervical cancer without the vaccine. This will be particularly true because of the huge size of the groups. So two groups which are otherwise equal in every respect, one group gets the drug and one doesn't (or gets a placebo), therefore any differences post-test must be attributable to the drug. This is how scientific testing works.

So by this test, they can, in spite of the fact that not all of the other 1/2 of the test subjects developed the cancer, say that the only reason those women didn't get cancer was because of the vaccine? It seems to me that the number of women who did get the cells for cancer would have had to be a lot higher to take into account the fact that not all women get cervical cancer. To me, it seems a bit misleading to say that the only reason those women didn't get the cancer was because they were vaccinated. Maybe it works, maybe not, I don't know, but I don't think that one real study constitutes proof. How many studies did they do with Viox to prove it was safe, only to wind up in court because it wasn't? You'll notice, in the linked article, that stock prices went up after they released the study results.

I think what Robert's trying to get out is this: regardless of there being a control group and both groups equally apt to develop cancer, there really is no way of saying that without the vaccine the group that tested clean wouldn't have done so anyhow.

Cancer is a mutation of the body's own cells gone rogue - there may be genetic predilictions and environmental triggers, but in the end, the body either will or won't run rogue. All the predictions in the world cannot accurately say if a person will definitely develop cancer.

For example, I am considered at high risk for cervical cancer since my paternal grandmother died of it at 39 (she knew she had it at age 28). I dreaded pap smear results, especially at those ages. Apparently whatever genetic trigger I may carry is turned off as it is off for both my sisters so far. That's not to say I'm completely in the clear, of course, but there is NO sign medically.

So it may be that the women who did not develop cancer simply wouldn't have anyhow, regardless of having been vaccinated. Short of physically manipulating their cells to deliberately introduce cancer, there is no way a doctor can say with certainty that the vaccine prevented it. That is one of my main objections/concerns with this vaccine.

It appears the vaccine prevents a certain kind of cancer because it protects against a certain contributing factor. In my opinion, it is shoddy practice to say (as has been advertised) that cervical cancer can be prevented because there's a drug that may prevent one of the contributing factors that may leave a woman highly susceptible to those cancerous mutations.

Is it hopeful? Yes. Is it safe? Don't know. Does it really work? No way of knowing with certainty that it does without deliberate manipulation on the cellular level, in my opinion. And that sort of testing on humans is not acceptable.

Well, whether it is safe and whether it does the thing it is meant to are two different questions. Tests for Viox would have showed that it did the thing it was supposed to (sorry but I can't recall what it was for - arthritis?) but were clearly not sufficient to demonstrate long term side effects. Similarly the tests for this vaccine are aiming to demonstrate that it prevents cervical cancer by immunising against HPV. Not necessarily that it is safe in other respects.

If a large number of the control subjects developed cervical cancer then that would indicate that there was clearly something screwy with the way they recruited participants. The risk of developing cervical cancer is very low overall. So the small number of women developing the cancer in the control group would be representative of the population risk of cervical cancer. The point was not to show that lots of women get cervical cancer when they DON'T get vaccinated, but that no (or at least many fewer) women get it when they DO get the vaccine. Which was shown.

They have two very large groups which are essentially identical in every way - general health, age, risk of cancer, etc. This is achieved through random assignment to control and vaccine groups. Therefore you can assume that since everything else is equal, if neither of the groups had been given the vaccine then after a period of time there would be equal numbers of women from both groups developing cervical cancer - we can be confident in assuming this because the groups are the same in every significant way. So then if one group is given the vaccine, and the other isn't, and the control group has a significant number of women developing cancer and the vaccine group has no one with cancer then the likelihood of this result occurring purely by chance, i.e. it would have happened without the vaccine, is very low. Much lower than the likelihood of the result occurring because of the vaccine. Statistical analyses would have been run in this test to determine the probability of this result occurring by chance. For a result to be considered significant in studies like these, the probability of the result being due to chance not the vaccine would be extremely low (e.g., 1% or lower).

Of course, support for a result in a study like this is much stronger when it has been replicated in other studies. Although I think Bungleau indicated that a number of studies have been conducted showing the same pattern of results, not just one. However, provided that the methodology in this study was sufficiently rigorous (i.e. proper random assignment, appropriate pre-tests, etc.) then this result is very strong on its own. This is how all drug trials are conducted. It is definitely possible to be wary of this vaccine because there have not been sufficient studies to demonstrate possible long term side effects, or whether the effect lasts over a person's lifetime. However, you should not be wary of whether the drug does what it supposed to do, i.e. prevent HPV and therefore cervical cancer, because the tests have shown that it does.

I just feel, as I stated before, that stating 100% effectiveness is misleading, since, as you stated Aelia, not every woman will get the cancer. It's effective is probably quite evident, I just don't like the assumptions made.

Interestingly, this made the local papers here, primarily because of the pricing disparity. At local universities, the price for the three shots ranges from $375 to $546...

*SOMEONE* is getting a nice markup... and I suspect now that the rates at the different universities are published, there will be some shifting in the price.

Something I hadn't thought of and I don't believe has ever been brought up in any of the discussions I've been in about this vaccine (if it has here, I apologize):

If this protects against a primarilly sexually transmitted set of virii which then may result in cervical cancer in women, why not vaccine MEN as well? Seems to me that if the other half of the equation were also protected against the virii, the entire problem would be alleviated to a great extent.

There's little point to doing so. Men can't get cervical cancer, so there is no advantage to men getting it. The only benefit to vaccinating men would be somewhat improved protection of those women who have refused the vaccine. I don't know about you, but I can see a much cheaper (and more effective) way of protecting these women than vaccinating the other half of the population.

Agreed. BUT (and I'll do some research) does HPV only mutate to cervical cancer or is that all the drug company has been looking at it? Are there no known health risks for men? Has anyone researched it? If not, then why did the connection to HPV and cervical cancer pop up exclusively?

If HPV is a primarilly sexually transmitted virus - and sorry Lethosos, that means that MEN have it and transmit it - then vaccinating MEN as well makes a LOT of sense. If you can eliminate some of the carriers, then many of the end-case scenarios cease, as well.

Don't mind me. I'm a curious cynic. I want answers - and both Big Business and government are loathe to provide answers unless it serves their purpose.