Well, now it is even a member of the panel that approved the drug coming out against mandating the Gardasil vaccine for all girls.

The chairman of the federal panel that recommended the new cervical-cancer vaccine for pre-teen girls says lawmakers should not make the inoculation mandatory, as the District and more than 20 states, including Virginia, are considering.

Dr. Jon Abramson, chairman of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), also said he and panel members told Merck & Co., the drug Gardasil's maker, not to lobby state lawmakers to require the vaccine for school attendance.

"I told Merck my personal opinion that it shouldn't be mandated," Dr. Abramson told The Washington Times. "And they heard it from other committee members."

Dr. Abramson said he opposes mandating Gardasil, which prevents the cervical-cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV), because the sexually transmitted HPV is not a contagious disease like measles and he is not sure states can afford to inoculate all students.

"The vaccines out there now are for very communicable diseases. A child in school is not at an increased risk for HPV like he is measles," Dr. Abramson said.

Gee, that argument sounds familiar to me. Where have I heard it before? Oh, yeah – that is the same argument I made against the vaccines on day one, only to be told how wrong-headed my position was. Anybody want to reconsider that criticism now?

Oh, and there is this minor consideration as well.

Middle-school girls inoculated with the breakthrough vaccine will be no older than 18 when they pass Gardasil's five-year window of proven effectiveness -- more than a decade before the typical cancer patient contracts HPV, The Washington Times reported last week.

Infectious disease specialists and cancer pathologists say the incubation period for HPV becoming cancer is 10 to 15 years -- meaning the average cervical cancer patient, who is 47, contracted the virus in her 30s and would not be protected by Gardasil taken as a teen.

Dr. Abramson said the panel thinks the vaccine will last for at least 10 years. Even if it provides 10 years of protection, it would still leave girls given the inoculation in the sixth grade vulnerable during their late 20s and early 30s, when most cervical-cancer patients contract HPV. At that point, another round of Gardasil would be necessary.

So it seems to me that folks like Rick Perry and others seeking to play doctor with the little girls of the nation are not merely engaged in bad politics, but in bad medicine as well.

Posted by: Greg at 11:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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