Fri, September 14, 2007
Warning bells over Gardasil
By LYN COCKBURN
It's the saviour of young girls. It's a revolution. It's a miracle - a stunning scientific discovery.
Its name is Gardasil and it leaps tall buildings. It is a vaccine and helps to protect girls and women against cervical cancer.
It is so ground breakingly powerful that the Canadian government has designated $300 million for a program to vaccinate girls ages nine to 13.
Already, three provinces in Canada are offering Gardasil vaccines in their elementary schools. Ontario, Newfoundland and P.E.I. are starting an inoculation program with other provinces considering similar plans. Vaccinations, at least for now, are voluntary.
Statistics show that, in Canada, some 1,400 women are diagnosed each year with cervical cancer and each year, about 400 die.
So what's not to like about this mighty Gardasil? A lot. At the top of the list is the hype which is highly misleading.
Parents may be forgiven if they've come to believe that this is the ultimate cervical cancer vaccine and that it will protect their girls well into womanhood.
It isn't and we don't know if it will. It isn't a cure for cervical cancer and it isn't a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Yet, even the Canadian Cancer Society which endorses Gardasil refers to it as "the cervical cancer vaccine."
Instead, it is a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) some strains of which lead to the development of about 70% of cervical cancer.
HPV is the world's most common sexually transmitted infection among both men and women. And there are about 200 different strains of the virus. Gardasil protects against four.
Thirty per cent of cervical cancers are associated with other causes including some strains of HPV which are not covered by Gardasil.
And at present, there is no evidence showing that the three innoculations required are long lasting. The longest study of any girls who've had the vaccine is four years, so any suggestion that it's three shots and you're safe is, at best, misleading.
Scientists may well discover that yearly booster shots are necessary.
The frantic hype about Gardasil suggests that the medical profession does not presently know how to prevent cervical cancer. It does.
Pap tests have cut cervical cancer rates by 50% in the last 40 years. The death rate is down 60%. Cervical cancer, while obviously a dreadful disease, is not an epidemic in Canada.
Moreover, the spin surrounding Gardasil may easily and tragically convince women and parents that Pap tests are unnecessary, that the use of
condoms is passe, that a needle in the arm is life-long protection against cervical cancer.
So why this rush to vaccinate? Surely the ubiquitous marketing of Gardasil has nothing to do with the fact that its manufacturer, Merck, has but a few years to exclusively sell its product before its patent runs out?
And then there's the question of this vaccine being administered exclusively to girls.
HPV is passed around with amazing speed and ease. Often there is no way of telling who gave it to whom. It is sexually transmitted, outside and inside holy matrimony.
So I'll spare you the lecture on abstinence, the argument brought to you by the same people who believe sex education turns teens into sexual lunatics.
HPV is highly present in boys and men.
In fact, this virus is associated with cancer of the penis and of the anus.
In addition, many males are carriers, have no symptoms themselves, yet pass it on to their sexual partners and their wives.
So, why are we not eagerly vaccinating boys, boys say, as young as nine? Or 11? Or 13?
In this rush to vaccinate Canadian girls with Gardasil, the green light has been turned on far too quickly, with far too little thought and not enough definitive testing.
