September 14, 2007
Morning Roundup: Doom and Gloom Edition
Good morning, Washington, and welcome to Friday. There's nothing like a nationally televised address about troop levels to put you in a mood for a sound night's sleep heading into the weekend, isn't there? Certainly we would never have tossed and turned contemplating the "sinister ingenuity" that allows President Bush to escalate a war and then de-escalate it a year later without ever having a plan to successfully end it, and yet be able to hand gifts like "5,700 troops home by Christmas" to Republican candidates for president. Nope, we slept just fine last night.
HPV Vaccine Debate Won't Die: Despite having already been debated and approved in a 7 to 3 Council vote in April, the decision to require the HPV vaccine for girls entering 6th grade is once again in question, as D.C. Council members Yvette M. Alexander and Muriel Bowser say they want to repeal the law. Neither Council member had a chance to vote on the legislation, as it took place a month before they took office, and both have expressed skepticism about its wisdom. Apparently preventing cervical cancer isn't something the Council members think is worth doing.
Report Predicts Less Healthy Air: The WaPo tips us off to a new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council that tells Washington area residents they should expect an increase in the number of days with unhealthy levels of smog in the air in summers to come -- this despite our air being generally cleaner than it was two decades ago. Awesome.
Briefly Noted: D.C. agency wants to investigate Verizon ... Eastern High's missing scores scrutinized ... 17 suspects arrested in crystal meth ring ...
This Day in DCist: In 2004 we spent some time with the Ladies of the Upper Northwest Side and in 2006 we gave Moby a hard time for talking smack about our city.
Photo by rodeomilano
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And while DC is investigating Verizon, maybe they can get them to start installing FIOS in the city instead of making a donut hole out of us by installing it everywhere else.
This is my take on the speech last night, which I didn't have the heart to watch (I settled for reading the transcript in the NY Times).
It's interesting that a conflicting WH report is now saying that Iraq has met only one more benchmark, which is re-Baathification. In other words, rescinding Bremer's biggest fuckups now count as benchmarks.
Saw a link to your story on Buzzflash via the WSJ. Wouldn't want to see your hits go down and put you out of a job. Blogging/writing professionally has always been something of a dream of mine for years.
Apparently preventing cervical cancer isn't something the Council members think is worth doing. - I don't think Merck could've said it better, if you'd given their marketing team years and tens of millions of dollars.
could someone explain to me why the HPV vaccine should be mandatory? I can't seem to wrap my brain around it. measles and mumps vaccines I can understand being mandatory, but this? it just doesn't sit right with me and I would really like someone to convince me. how come a vaccine that has *just* come to market suddenly has to be mandatory??? one can only hope that we don't get hideous deforming side effects popping up in 10 years (but hey! you'll be cervical cancer free - or at least that's the rumor!). voluntary vaccinations, I'm cool with that, but making this vaccine mandatory, I'm sorry but I don't see it. of course Merck hasn't bought my vote on the matter.
inloganO, you mention Verizon is making a donut hole out of us, but I think you mean to say they're making us the hole of the donut. A donut hole is actually all donut. Sweet!
I totally agree with guest #3. Certain vaccines should be mandatory because of the contagious nature of the disease, especially in a school setting. But the HPV vaccine is too new, doesn't prevent nearly all cervical cancers, and vaccinates only against a few strains of non-highly-contagious of the disease. It should be left up to the family to decide. Not the DC Council. And DCist should know better
I totally agree with guest #4, donut holes ARE sweet! mmmmm
I agree with the HPV posters. The vaccine is very new, and while clinical trials have proven very few side effects up until now, we've only seen five years of data.
However, I think the reason the District chose to make in mandatory is that we'll be able to get funding so that low-income individuals can get the vaccine if they choose.
I think both posters have either neglected to mention or didn't know that there is an personal belief opt-out clause. If you don't want to vaccinate your child, you can feel free to opt-out.
If it's mandatory, then people can get it paid for if they don't have insurance. It means that it's accessible to folks who can't afford it.
There's also an opt-out clause for parents who don't want their kids vaccinated; so it's not *absolutely* mandatory.
[Of the approximately 6 million new cases of genital HPV in the US every year, it is estimated that 74% of them occur in 15 to 24 year olds.]
According to the CDC, the only way you can totally protect yourself against HPV is to avoid any sexual activity that involves genital contact--intercourse isn't necessary.
The reason why the vaccination should be mandatory is because the vaccine may help protect against HPV Types 6, 11, 16, and 18. HPV Types 16 and 18 cause 70% of cervical cancer cases and HPV Types 6 and 11 cause 90% of genital warts cases.
HPV is easily transmitted. According to the CDC, 20 million people in the US already had HPV in 2005. Most of them don't show any sypmtoms, so they can pass the virus without even knowing it.
Despite a 20-year low in the teen pregnancy rate and an impressive decline in the teen birth rate, the US still has the highest teen pregnancy rate of an industrialized country. About 40 percent of American women become pregnant before the age of 20. The result is about 1 million pregnancies each year among women ages 15 to 19.
Kids are having sex and engaging in sexual activity.
Each year, more than 3 million teens contract a sexually transmitted disease, accounting for about one-fourth of the 12 million Americans infected annually. Adolescents are at high risk for many of these infections because they are more likely to engage in unprotected sex and to have multiple partners over brief periods of time. And some teens are pressured into having sex without being able to protect themselves. These factors increase the likelihood that a sexually active teen will have sex with someone who is already infected with an STD.
Society should view the dangerous consequences of teenage sexual activity as an ongoing challenge. We should want to protect our teenagers from the risk of premature parenthood and from disease, and we should want to protect the children they would struggle to raise.
Why then do we question the welfare of our children and this mandatory vaccine?
Urban Architect, you make very good points having to do with the health issues of these kids, and the general population. However, you don't address the main criticism of this mandatory vaccine: it is a brand new drug and has not had extensive testing yet. Yes, it has passed FDA approval. But approval means that doctors can now prescribe it on a case by case basis. It is too early to line up every kid and inject drugs into them, when we can't confident of their safety.
guest10, you're right - that's why there's an opt-out clause. If you don't want your kid vaccinated, you can opt out. What's the problem again?
Ah the antivax loons. Keep on spreading disease, you brave fools!
Guest #10 your comments had already been addressed by guest #7 and now "missunderestimated" #11, there is an opt-out clause for parents who don't want their kids vaccinated. But since it is mandatory, low-income families now have access to something that they may not have known about or been able to afford otherwise.
don't half the occurences of HPV just "go away" on their own and don't actually turn into cervical cancer anyway?
Let's please also note that sadly, girls don't always have a say about when or how they engage in activity that could lead to them contracting HPV. It's somewhat nearsighted to presume that the only sexual contact a girl will have will be consentual. Given that environment, why does the moral argument of "I don't want to encourage the promiscuity of my child," keep getting so much airplay? It was all over the Kojo show today.
Never underestimate the power of lobbying. While you'll hear no argument from me that preventing HPV and cervical cancer is a net good, its more likely that the rush for mandatory innocculations is capitalistic, rather than altruistic. Public health concerns just happen to be an unbelievably specially effective method of persuasion.
From Corpwatch (and others, I've read this in a few publications):
"New Jersey-based Merck, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies had been hoping to reap billions of dollars from Gardasil. Most of the world's sexually active men and woman and every child over 9 years of age are potential customers for the expensive course of injections.
A quick and successful launch was crucial, both for Merck's failing financial health and because rival GlaxoSmithKline was developing a similar HPV vaccine. Things looked good for Merck when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed to fast-track Gardasil in February 2006 and approved it in June, pronouncing the vaccine effective and safe for girls as young as nine. Soon after the FDA approved Gardasil, WIG was helping introduce bills in some 20 states, with Merck actually writing the legislation in at least one state: Florida.
If Merck was genuinely committed to getting the drug into the hands of low-income patients, they'd lower their pricepoint, either across the board, or through the myriad prescription-assistance programs that have sprung up. By rallying for mandatory injections, they assure that they can get millions of otherwise wary individuals to commit to the injections, while still maintaining the market rate they've chosen.
Guest #14, you are correct, in most cases, HPV infections are not "active" long enough to cause problems. However, if an infection with a "high-risk" type of HPV persists, abnormal cells may develop - and turn into cervical cancer, precancerous lesions, or gential warts if not detected and treated early.
I agree that the relationship between Merck and WIG was sketchy.
That being said, I think Merck does deserve to reap some rewards for investing in the R&D for what remains a landmark vaccine. The pharmaceutical business is a business and really, I think they've done some crappy things but lobbying for mandatory HPV vaccines and charging hundreds of dollars for it is probably not even on the top ten list of worst things they've ever done. The price isn't something they necessarily chose, R&D costs money. They led the way and they should profit from that.
Again, I realize that the pharmaceutical industry isn't the most ethical in the world and the FDA doesn't do its job very well. However. If I had a daughter and having her vaccinated wasn't cost-prohibitive for me, I'd get her vaccinated. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I may be wrong on this but so far, I see no there there.
missunderestimated:
I don't disagree. R&D costs money, Merck should be able to recoup its investment, especially now, when the patent(s) is/are still in force. My point was only to say that it is very likely that the push for mandatory immunization has more to do with Merck's bottom line, and less to do with some deep-seeded concern with halting a virulent epidemic.