Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9963

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Goldstein J.
JAMA Editor: Don’t Mandate Cancer Vaccine
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog 2007 May 1
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/05/01/jama-editor-dont-mandate-cancer-vaccine/?mod=yahoo_hs

Full text:

In the latest salvo in a national debate, the editor of JAMA opposes requiring girls to get vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer.

Routine use of a new vaccine, sold by Merck under the brand-name Gardasil, “undoubtedly is beneficial to the public’s health, as it is likely to reduce the incidence of cervical cancers,” Catherine DeAngelis (pictured, left) writes in an editorial in this week’s JAMA. “However, the rush to make HPV vaccination mandatory in school-aged girls presents ethical concerns and is likely to be counterproductive.”

The editorial, co-written with a health-law expert, comes as many states consider making the vaccine, which was approved last year and costs over $300, mandatory for school girls.

DeAngelis, a pediatrician, points out an essential difference between Gardasil and other mandated vaccines. The cervical cancer virus, called HPV, can only be transmitted sexually, while diseases prevented by other vaccines are transmitted through the air. She notes that Gardasil has not been tested in young girls, and says the duration of the immunity it confers is unclear. And in an interview with the Health Blog this afternoon, she criticized Merck for lobbying legislatures to make the vaccine mandatory.

“I am very pro-vaccinations and immunizations when they’re good because they save a lot of lives, and they save a lot of sickness. But you do not make it mandatory for children by approaching politicians to make laws,” she said. “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended it; they never said to make it mandatory. It’s for the parents to decide, not a politician.”