More Glitches with Gardasil
The Gezondheidsraad (Dutch Health Council advising authorities on health matters) admitted in a position Report on cervical cancer.”…Whether HPV vaccination satisfies the…criterion – that the vaccination should be an effective means of preventing the relevant disease – is harder to say. The vaccines have been developed only recently and, because the interval between HPV infection and the development of cervical cancer averages about twenty years, there are as yet no data to show whether vaccination leads to a fall in the incidence of cervical cancer…”
Yet a few paragraphs later, the Council states: “Assessment against the criteria suggests that the admission of HPV vaccination to the NIP (National Immunization Program) would be justified.” Accordingly, a mass vaccination program was undertaken. There was such a furor in the Dutch press about Gardasil earlier this year that intended the vaccination plan failed in large part.
A paper “Marketing HPV Vaccine” the JAMA described how Merck, whose sales of Gardasil totaled $1.4 billion last year, provided professional medical societies with gran money the organizations used to develop educational programs promoting the product. “The lectures glossed over questions about the vaccine’s effectiveness and whether booster shots would be needed,” said Dr. Sheila M. Rothman, the paper’s author.I quoted another study in the JAMA in my newsletter in which the authors admitted that the analysis was based on imperfect data. An accompanying editorial questioned whether any level or risk is acceptable when inoculating a healthy population against a disease that can be prevented through screening.