Insanity=Money Hungry

Should I really be surprised? Are there any people involved pharmaceuticals that are actually in it to help the people? Apparently Merck is not one of them. Their recent exploit you ask? Gardasil for BOYS! You'll recall that Merck developed Gardasil as an HPV vaccine and marketed it toward young girls. They were recommending all girls over the age of 11 to be vaccinated. HPV is a sexually transmitted virus that *can* cause cervical cancer. Of course the vaccine is only targeted at 4 of the more than 100 strains of the virus, and yet it still costs approximately $400! Now let me refresh your memory further, back in February Governor Perry, of Texas, created an executive order mandating all middle school girls be vaccinated with Gardasil prior entering school. Is it just a coincidence that Gardasil's lobbyist was Perry's former chief of staff?? Thankfully the Senate was smart enough to overturn this executive order. However Texas was the first of many states that would struggle over the idea of making this vaccine mandatory.

Let me get off on a little bunny trail here... I wonder why the need to make it mandatory? I mean parents are aware the vaccine is available if they want it they can get it. Does the Governor (and other states that considered making it mandatory) really think that parents are not capable of making decisions for their children?

So back to the boys... It would appear that Merck has found another marketing angle. Remember these shots cost $400 each and it current is only useful for half of the market, think of all the potential dollars not tapped into by limiting the usefulness to only girls.
Now you might say "but boys can't get cervical cancer?!""can they?" No boys can't get cervical cancer, but apparently they can get throat cancer if they perform oral sex on a girl that is already infected.

last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University confirmed that infection with HPV via oral sex is by far the leading cause of throat cancer, which strikes 11,000 American men and women each year.

11,000!! Current US population: 301,139,947 so 0.00365% of the whole United States will get throat cancer of which HPV is ONE cause (tobacco and alcohol are thought to be major contributors as well, but big business would never allow them to be outlawed) so because 1 in 27376 of the American public may get cancer from HPV we're going to expose millions of little boys to toxins and possible adverse reactions associated with this vaccine for what? a possible preventative to one of them? Merck is still unsure of how long the vaccine works, as of right now they are suggesting a 5yr booster.

So what is the cost of all of this? Well I haven't found the numbers for boys so lets look at the girls...

In 2004, there were 10,500 new cases of cervical cancer.
About 70 % of these cases, or 7350 were associated with the virus targeted by Gardasil.
Two million girls (estimate) are born each year.
2,000,000 divided by 7350 = 272

IF the vaccine works, (Highly Unlikely),
and IF it prevents all of the targeted cervical cancer cases (7350), (Impossible),
and IF the year 2004 rate of new cervical cancer cases remained constant, (rather than continuing the established 35 year decline...)
THEN 272 girls [or more] must be vaccinated at a cost of $300 to $500 each to prevent one case of cervical cancer. Estimated cost = $81,600 to $136,000 per case of cancer prevented. Cervical cancer is virtually 100% preventable by lifestyle factors and can usually be treated for one fourth the estimated "vaccine preventable" cost. Add the estimated cost per case prevented to the cost of treating the other diseases caused by this vaccine and you will readily appreciate why we urge you to strive for immunity through diet and other lifestyle factors. In addition, the concept of vaccinating 272 nine year old girls to prevent one case of disease which occurs 31-46 years later when the girls become women 40 to 55 years in age seems like a story which should begin, "Once upon a time, the wagon of the snake oil salesman was seen approaching ..."

www.vaclib.org

So WHY are we pushing a drug that has had 385 adverse reaction reports in 6 months? Out of the 385 individual GARDASIL adverse event reports made to VAERS, two-thirds required additional medical care and about one-third of all reports were for children 16-years-old and under, with nearly 25 percent of those children having received simultaneously one or more of the 18 vaccines that Merck did not study in combination with GARDASIL. Money, that's why. You do the math approximately 4 million children born each year at an average of $400 per vaccine... That's several really nice houses, yachts, cars..... aren't our children worth more than that?

an interesting post script