Letters to the Editor

• The Risk/Reward Ratio...

  [Read the article: Texas governor orders mandatory HPV vaccination]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  What do we know about this vaccine, the disease its meant to prevent, and the company that makes the vaccine?

  • The vaccine prevents only 70% of HPV.
  • Most HPV reverses itself anyway and does not progress to cervical cancer.
  • Cervical cancer is on the decline, except in African-American and Hispanic women.
  • Cervical cancer is preventable with annual Pap smears and early detection of cervical dysplasia.
  • The vaccine has only been tested for a short amount of time and we do NOT know the long-term effects.
  • Merck has a questionable track record of covering up side effects of drugs in the interest of its financial botton line.
  • The vaccine does NOT eliminate the need for annual Pap smears in those who get it.
  • The vaccine does NOT eliminate the need for annual Pap smears, or have any effect on the death rates of those who will be getting cervical cancer in the next 10 to 20 years -- since cervical cancer typically takes at least 10 years to develop.
  • Merck cannot assure us that girls who receive this vaccination will not suffer long-term health effects from this vaccine.
  • Many Americans do NOT have health insurance, and therefore, when this vaccine becomes mandatory in a state, your tax dollars are paying hundreds of dollars directly to Merck for every girl in your state.
  • The low-income mothers and grandmothers of vaccinated girls, who don't have access to free annual Pap smears, will continue to develop cervical cancer at the same rates as before.

  The whole issue here is MANDATORY vaccination.

  HPV is NOT diptheria, measles, smallpox or bird flu. It is not a public health epidemic menacing our girls at record rates.

  We have a vaccine called the Pneumovax, for example, that is a vaccine against Pneumonia. Pneumonia kills 40,000 people a year. That's VASTLY more than cervical cancer. But the Pneumovax is not mandatory in the population. Why is that? Why is it an optional vaccine? (Could it be that it only costs about $3 a dose? )

  I have no religious or social objection to the vaccination, and I have no objection to the vaccine being available to anyone who wants it. I don't even object to a state making it MANDATORY that insurers MUST cover the cost of the vaccine for those who want it, and making it MANDATORY that Medicaid MUST cover the cost of the vaccine for those who want it.

  But there is absolutely NO logic in making it mandatory.

  Mandatory vaccination is a public health necessity when you want to eliminate the incidence of a disease in a population, so that you can basically wipe it out, i.e., smallpox

  But you can't wipe out HPV and cervical cancer in the population unless you mandate vaccination for every single person who is sexually active in the U.S.

  In the end, there is no rationale for mandatory vaccination with a vaccine whose long term effects are unknown, that is made by a company that has a reputation for playing fast and lose with test results, to prevent an already uncommon cancer that is preventable with annual Pap smears.

  It does suggest that it is financially motivated. Those $2 billion dollars a year Merck will be earning on this vaccine alone provide a lot of justification for why this is being legislated as mandatory.

  So for those who have "had enough," feel free to try out the vaccine on YOUR daughters, that's the great thing about America, that we should have such FREEDOM (or at least, we used to. But in 10 or 20 years, if the long-term effects of the vaccine end up making it into another Vioxx, or Fen-Phen, or Hormone Replacement Therapy, and your daughter is harmed, then please don't come crying to anyone. And don't waste our court resources suing Merck if it comes out that the company released Gardisil and tweaked the results, or knew there were problems down the road.

  And I promise those of us who would opt out of vaccinating our daughters won't come crying to you if they do in fact get HPV.

  Because it's all a matter of control.

  My daughter can practice safe sex, get annual Pap smears, and follow up on any irregular Pap results. That should pretty much ensure that she doesn't get cervical cancer.

  But you can vaccinate your daughter, and even then, your daughter must still practice safe sex, get annual Pap smears, and follow up on any irregular Pap results to ensure that she doesn't get cervical cancer. And once that needle is spent, there's absolutely NOTHING you or she can do to ensure that she doesn't get long-term side effects from the vaccine.

  The point is CHOICE. This vaccine should NOT be mandatory. It should be an option.

  No one is saying it's absolutely unsafe, and it may be 100% safe, but given the record of Merck/FDA/Bush Administration, it's perfectly reasonable to question whether, in the long-term the vaccine IS actually safe. And given the fact that it only partially prevents HPV, which only affects 1 in 150 people, and among them, only a small percentage develop cervical cancer -- that's a consideration.

  This is a decision where one needs to weigh the risks of two options.

  OPTION A: Get the vaccine, suffer potential long-term side effects if they manifest, automatically avoid 70% of HPV, still face the risk of the other 30% of HPVs, still require annual Pap smears and followup to prevent cervical cancer

  OPTION B: Don't get vaccine, have small risk of getting HPV, and even smaller risk of it turning into cervical cancer, only if you don't get annual Pap smears and don't followup

  I'll take OPTION B thank you.

  Permalink Sunday, February 4, 2007 07:31 AM