Friday, August 21, 2009
2 years and counting...HPV vaccine controversy continues
Some medical advances slide quietly into practice; others seem to be neverending sources of controversy. The HPV vaccine definitely falls into the latter category. When we first covered it, the big issues were whether vaccination should be mandated and whether insurers would pay enough for it. There was also public debate about the moral message of vaccinating pre-teens against a sexually-transmitted disease. Then came horror stories about mysterious side effects.
The latest issue of JAMA digs into all these issues. One article reports postlicensure safety data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Basically, they didn't find anything particularly out of line with other vaccines, except higher rates of fainting and blood clots (mostly in women who were also on the pill). A less reassuring article delves into the marketing strategy employed by Merck, particularly the involvement of professional medical associations. Not that pharma marketing usually is, but it's not pretty.
All together, the research causes the author of an accompanying editorial to come to a fairly negative conclusion on the value of the vaccine. "The net benefit of the HPV vaccine to a woman is uncertain. Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened. So rationally she should be willing to accept only a small risk of harmful effects from the vaccine."
Only one thing is certain--this controversy doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon.
Labels: HPV, vaccination
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
9:53 AM
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