Governor Mandating HPV Vaccine

[jmjtina]

[quote name='XIX' post='1190376' date='Feb 9 2007, 09:55 PM']
Okay. Fair enough. But I think what really set me off is the comparision between the vaccination and birth control. Saying they are no different. I have dedicated my life to contributing to the end of birth control (among other things) can not understand how the two are identical.

I think it's kinda annoying that this is being touted as something we need to have, but I don't understand this huge uproar.
[/quote]


If you've dedicated your life to end birth control, the similarities between this shot (which is a primary for a sexually transmitted disease NOT the cancer) should be clear.

The huge uproar is this: girls as young as 9 years old will be mandated by the state to have this. The fact that this is a shot for those sexually active, to stop an STD, and the media etc have touted it as if it is for cancer. We do not know the long term effects this may have on 9 year olds. This is a FAMILY decision!!!

Birth control: Will stop you from being pregnant. (hidden lie: will cause an early abortion i.e. is an abortificient meaning that women ARE becoming pregnant but are losing the baby before they even know it. Also, not a guareentee that you will NOT be pregnant)

"Cervical Cancer Shot" : will stop you from getting this cancer. ( hidden lie: will only decrease your chances of getting this cancer which are horribly greater for those who are sexually active but the primary for this shot is to stop an STD. Secondary: is for the "chances" of getting this cancer. You may get it. [b]To effectively catch this cancer in time, a PAP smear is required. [/b] Also, no long term study has been done to see the long term effects of this shot on girls who have not reached puberty yet.

Similarties: both are lies. Both have to do with being sexually active. Both are being pushed on us as "good" things and both are now (or will be) readily available.

Bottom line: The state has no buisness mandating this. This should be a choice between the family where they opt in, instead of opting out.

Edited February 10, 2007 by jmjtina

[Akalyte]

From what I understand a person can get HPV just by touching...This is very serious.

[jmjtina]

There are many different types of HPV. Many women contract HPV and their healthy immune system clears it without any consequences. The HPV vaccine addresses only the 4 subtypes that are associated with cervical cancer--6,11,16, and 18 with types 16 and 18 accounting for 70% of the associated cervical cancer.

The vaccine targets these subtypes of HPV that are linked to cancer. Non-cancer causing HPV is linked to venereal warts and the vaccine does nothing to prevent those. If you get the vaccine you still have to get pap smears. The vaccine increases your odds that your pap smears will always be normal.

The touching you are referring to is probably linked to the non-cancerous type. Also, you need to touch an infected area which requires you to take your clothes off or touching visible warts on the skin.

Edited February 10, 2007 by jmjtina

[Lil Red]

More information courtesy of Julie at Happy Catholic:

[b]In medical cost vs. benefit modeling[/b] (which strongly informs national medical public policy making and far too strongly informs the medical policies of HMOs), [b]the most critical component is a value called "cost per life year gained."[/b]

[color="#FF0000"]If the cost per life year gained is [size=5]under $50,000[/size], that is generally considered a decent investment by US medical policy makers.[/color][b] If "cost per life year" gained is over $100,000, that is generally considered a wasteful medical policy[/b] because that money could surely be put to much better use elsewhere. Yes, this is cruel and heartless to some degree, but wide scale medical cost allocations do need to be made and, more relevantly, are continually made using these cost plus risk vs. benefit analyses. Think HMOs. [color="#FF0000"]Now consider why pap smears, blood tests and urine tests aren't recommended every month for everyone.[/color] Testing monthly could definitely save more than a few lives, and there is no measurable associated medical risk. But the cost would be astronomical versus the benefit over the entire US population when comparing these monthly tests to other therapies, procedures and medicines.

Now on to GARDASIL. By the time you pay doctors a small fee to inventory and deliver GARDASIL in three doses, you are talking about paying about $500 for this vaccine. [b]And because even in the best case scenario GARDASIL can confer protection against only 70% of cervical cancer cases, GARDASIL cannot ever obsolete the HPV screening test that today is a major component of most US women's annually recommended pap smears.[/b] These tests screen for 36 nasty strains of HPV, while GARDASIL confers protection against just four strains of HPV.

Now let's consider GARDASIL's best case scenario at the moment -- about $500 per vaccine, 100% lifetime protection against all four HPV strains (we currently have no evidence for any protection over five years), and no risk of any medical complications for any subset of the population (Merck's GARADSIL studies were too small and short to make this determination for adults, these studies used potentially dangerous alum injections as their "placebo control" and GARDASIL was hardly even tested on little kids). Now, using these best case scenario assumptions for GARDASIL, let's compare the projected situation of a woman who gets a yearly HPV screening test starting at age 18 to a woman who gets a yearly HPV screening test starting at age 18 plus the three GARDASIL injections at age 11 to 12. Even if you include all of the potential medical cost savings from the projected reduction in genital wart and HPV dysplasia removal procedures and expensive cervical cancer procedures, medicines and therapies plus all of the indirect medical costs associated with all these ailments and net all of these savings against GARDASIL's costs, [color="#FF0000"]the best case numbers for these analyses come out to [size=5]well over $200,000[/size] per life year gained -- no matter how far the hopeful pro-GARDASIL assumptions that underpin these projections are tweaked in GARDASIL's favor.[/color]

Several studies have been done, and they have been published in several prestigious medical journals:

[color="#000099"]http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.290.6.781
[url="http://tinyurl.com/2ovy95"]http://tinyurl.com/2ovy95[/url]
[url="http://tinyurl.com/2tbuma"]http://tinyurl.com/2tbuma[/url][/color]

None of these studies even so much as consider a strategy of GARDASIL plus a regimen of annual HPV screenings starting at age 18 to be worth mentioning (except to note how ridiculously expensive this would be compared to other currently recommended life extending procedures, medicines and therapies) because the cost per life year gained is simply far too high. What these studies instead show is that a regimen of GARDASIL plus delayed (to age 21, 22, 23, 25 or 27) biennial or triennial HPV screening tests may -- depending on what hopeful assumptions about GARDASIL's long term efficacy and risks are used -- hopefully result in a modest cost per life year savings compared to annual HPV screening tests starting at age 18.

If you don't believe me about this, just ask any responsible OB-GYN or medical model expert. Now, why do I think all of this is problematic?

[b]1) Nobody is coming clean[/b] (except to the small segment of the US population that understands medical modeling) [b]that the push for widespread mandatory HPV vaccination is based on assuming[/b] that we can use the partial protection against cervical cancer that these vaccines hopefully confer for hopefully a long, long time period to back off from recommending annual HPV screening tests starting at age 18 -- in order to save money, not lives.

[b]2) Even in the best case scenario, the net effect is to give billions in tax dollars to Merck so HMOs and PPOs can save billions on HPV screening tests in the future.[/b]

[b]3) These studies don't consider any potential costs associated with any potential GARDASIL risks. [/b]Even the slightest direct or indirect medical costs associated with any potential GARDASIL risks increase the cost per life year gained TREMENDOUSLY and can even easily change the entire analysis to cost per life year lost. Remember that unlike most medicines and therapies, vaccines are administered to a huge number of otherwise healthy people -- and, at least in this case, 99.99% of whom would never contract cervical cancer even without its protection.

[b]4) These studies don't take in account the fact that better and more regular HPV screening tests have reduced the US cervical cancer rate by about 25% a decade over the last three decades[/b] and that there is no reason to believe that this trend would not continue in the future, especially if we used a small portion of the money we are planning on spending on GARDASIL to promote free annual HPV screening tests for all low income uninsured US women.

[b]5) The studies assume that any constant cervical cancer death rate[/b] (rather than the downward trending cervical cancer death rate we have today)[b] that results in a reduced cost per life year gained equates to sound medical public policy.[/b]

As I said before, if any of you don't believe me about this, please simply ask your OB-GYN how the $500 cost of GARDASIL can be justified on a cost per life year gained basis if we don't delay the onset of HPV screening tests and back off from annual HPV screening tests to biennial or triennial HPV screening tests.

The recommendations are already in:[color="#000099"] [url="http://tinyurl.com/33p9q6"]http://tinyurl.com/33p9q6[/url][/color]

[i]The USPSTF strongly recommends ... beginning screening within 3 years of onset of sexual activity or age 21 (whichever comes first) and screening at least every 3 years ...[/i]