HPV vaccine

jack
Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:28:42 +0000

sunnyflorida: DES was certainly a disaster; however, it was FDA approved in 1947 for use in pregnancy (according to the article I provided above); it was FDA approved for the other uses you mentioned in 1941. Despite studies done, it was not until 1971 that the FDA issued an alert about its use during pregnancy.

Certainly, the prime (only?) motivator for a drug company is money; Merck stands to make at least $1 billion (at least) off of the sale of this vaccine, which will nicely offset their losses and impending lawsuits over Vioxx.

From what I understand and have read, the data presented to the FDA included only the testing on women aged 16-26 (21,000, followed over a 5 year period). The studies on younger girls, aged 9-15, were only on 1,184 subjects, and they were followed for only 18 months. I really don’t know how to compare this to other long-term studies, but that seems short to me, especially considering the push to vaccinate elementary school aged girls.

At any rate, I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about jumping on a bandwagon so readily and so quickly. For many (including gyn practices), that concern is more about long-term effects/safety than about any religious beliefs, or any other belief about young people and sex.