http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948093/

So who has a problem with this and who dosent. The way its being set up its allowing for anyone to have it done. And I think in no way does it condone pre maritel sex. Its just a vaccine but people are making some big deals about it.

Kinky would have done better.

Kinky's hat would have done better.

You callin' my little girl a hussy, Doc?

Governor Good Hair did a good job on this one. He's on the take by big pharma and is planning a VP run but its still good for all texas gals.

Parents who dont mind their girls getting the virus can opt them out on a religious basis.

HPV is more common then people think.

KY is pushing the requirement to get the HPV vaccine for attendance in any public school, after a certain age.

I think it's a good thing. No reason to let your daugher be susceptible to catching the virus if there's a way to prevent it. It's no different than getting a measles shot, IMO.

wow we agree on something.

We will have to face ths choice for my 12 year old daughter soon.

I appreciate what the medicine does and its a good thing. Still would raqther wait a few years to see if there are any other unintended effects.

I think it is extremely wrong for any government to force any type of drug or vaccination on the public without years of testing and history behind it.

Will the very same government be paying the lawsuits if something bad or some adverse future health effects are caused by this?

Don't say it won't happen. There have been "wonder drugs" for female health issues in the past that were later discovered to be harmful to either them or their offspring.

Also just because the FDA approves something, doesn't mean it won't harm people down the road. Their track record is less than perfect and in recent years they have a reputation of rushing approvals. Most likely due to political considerations.

This is a bad idea.

Wow - I'm just amazed at how biased that article is... they used every tactic they could think of to blast Perry - and all at once... it's so blatant that it detracts from the article and makes me distrust whether all of the information is accurate.

well...of course you against it.

Youre a very disagreeable person

Im kinda a sceptic of how quickly this passed and how much money this politician is getting paid.
But...

I think that understanding how easily we can eliminate HPV from the general public within a generation to not do something like this would be " extremely wrong "
(your such a drama queen BTW)

If you dont want your kid to get it then just opt her out with a school form.

So... How long would you consider "long term" testing?

I've got a scar on my left arm about the size of a nickel. I'm sure there's plenty of others around here that have something similiar. THAT vaccine had very limited testing, but thanks to it, it virtually eliminated smallpox off the face of the earth.

If we've got something that works, it's more of a public health problem to NOT get it out there. There's a helluva' lot of women who get cancer in their fun factories, and have to have the whole damn amusement park removed because of it... This vaccine's long-term side effects CAN'T be any worse than the risk of getting a nasty strain of the HPV.

Holy fuck.

I think I agree with him.

I need to lie down. I must be sick . . .

OK. Whats the rate of HPV in women who dont get it? (NOt being a smart ass, dont know.) And is the vaccine 100% effective in all cases?

I see this as way more serious than the chicken pox / pox vaccine and I didnt want my kid to have that! How can I justify this?

Kevin,

75% of all people (men and women) in the country have some strain of HPV. HPV does a lot of things; genital warts, cancer, or nothing at all, depending on the strain a person has, and how their body reacts to it. This vaccine is only "near" 100% effective against all strains of HPV, and it is touted as 100% effective against the cancer causing strains. It's been in testing for over 5 years, and has had, literally, over 20,000 test subjects in that time. It's been tested in more countries than just the US, in several different case studies.

Somewhere around 10-30% of women that have the strain of HPV that this vaccine protects against, end up having some form (of varying degrees of severity) of cervical cancer. There's no way of knowing whether or not any particular woman will develop cancer from the strain; there is no test to tell you if you will get cancer from it or not. Some do, some don't.

Unfortunately, most of this information isn't available on-line. I know most of what I know about it from JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association), and their articles are not available for free online.

But, having said that, if you really have to justify it, you can look at the straight-up costs of not getting the vaccine vs. getting it. The vaccine will run somewhere around $350 for the series of 3 shots. That's a lot, but it could be worse. Now, say in a few years your daughter goes in for a pap. and they find something that is "abnormal" (that's all they'll tell you at first), and they run a test, and yep, she's got a strain of HPV. Now they've got to run tests on the abnormal pap to find out if it's cancerous. And on top of that, they're going to want to do this every 3 to 6 months for a year, to determine if it is going away on its own. And then they'll still want to test every year, just in case.

Now figure up how much it costs for each pap. test, plus doctor's visit. It's not considered a routine checkup item, therefore most insurance companies do not cover it for free; your deductible will apply for the visit, and for the lab test. Not "co-pay", but "deductible". If it were me, it'd cost me about $150 per vist & lab test on my insurance through work.

Not to mention having someone that's a nervous wreck for days after each time, hoping to god it's not cancerous...

My sister is a pediatrician, and she actually loses money (almost $50 per patient) on this vaccine for every person she treats with it. But she's recommending it to ALL of her female patient's parents, because of what it can do. The doctor's that are giving this thing out are NOT making any money off it. So when they are actually willing to advice someone to do something for their health that doesn't earn them $$, to me, that's evidence enough that it's a good idea.

I don't know if everyone knows the facts about HPV. Basically, it doesn't affect men, and is VERY COMMON, and any of you can have it and not know it. A LOT of women have it. I know many people that do. Most of the time, there are no symptoms. The only way a woman can find out if she has the virus is by getting abnormal results from her annual exam and having the OB/GYN test for the virus.

The virus is sexually transmitted, and very easily too. The only thing you can do to prevent infection is to have PROTECTED sex EVERY TIME or practice abstinence. But even if a woman marries someone, the husband can still have it. It's more common than we think, and it's perfectly fine to live with as long as the woman gets an exam every year. The only way it'll ever lead to cancer is if you don't get checked and the cells grow. If the doctor catches pre-cancerous cells early, they can be frozen off. The virus can also go into remission and possibly go away completely.

Here's a helpful link:

http://www.baymoon.com/~hpvinfo/library/weekly/aa070301a.htm

As far as this vaccination thing goes, I'm not sure what to think. I would definitely want to know the long-term effects of it first. And I don't think it should be mandatory.

Midnight.. pic a user name and stick with it.

Like you're one to talk!

You're using Ian's account and name yet it says Carlton at the bottom!

....

I think the vaccination is a great idea. The government doesn't have the right to mandate vaccinations to the general populace, but I agree with mandatory vaccinations as a requirement for entering public schools. If people don't like it they can let their kids catch HPV at a private Christian academy.

If you wanted us to keep one name, why are we allowed to change it?

There's over 100 different strains of HPV. Some are harmless and the others cause the cancers. I had the cancer cells and they caugt it soon enough to freeze them out and I was fine. If you have a decent immune system, it will kick most of the strains and never give you a problem.
I don't agree with forcing meds on people, but the vaccine is to prevent cancer - not to advocate whoring around.

There's not a lot I can add to the previous posts, but I thought I would point out that the Gardasil HPV vaccine is probably one of the safest ever introduced. The vaccine consists of virus-like particles (VLP) manufactured using genetically-engineered microbes. As such the vacine contains no killed virus, no attenuated virus, no DNA or RNA, no mercury, antibiotics or egg products. You just make antibody to antigenic proteins, same as you do every day. It works, preventing a majority of the 10,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed each year, and many of the 4,000 deaths that occur yearly.

But the technology also makes it the most expensive vaccine ever--about $360 for the three-dose series. And that gets to the real issue: who pays for it and other new high-tech vaccines that are coming? $360 is chicken feed compared to the cost of diagnosing and treating cervical cancer, but already insurance companies are balking at paying for the shots. Even when they do, doctors are saying their reimbursements do not cover the cost of providing the vaccine, just as was mentioned in a previous post.

This country is about individual freedom, privacy, and choice. Forcing people to take a particular medication is wrong and an example of government overstepping its bounds.

Not to mention that this...

"Perry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government."

...clearly means the Governor has a moral and ethical obligation to recuse himself from any decisions on this issue. Instead he bypasses the legislature by abusing his executive powers.

What a joke.

Are you serious?

I'm just not making the connection on how requiring a vaccine to be given is a government abuse of powers conspiracy...

There are many vaccines that are already government required to be given to students in order to attend public schools. Measles, Mumps & Rubella is one of them. Tetanus is another. I'm sure there are others as well.

Small Pox used to be required, but since that's essentially eradicated (thanks to the vaccine), it no longer is req'd.

I just don't see how this is a bad idea.

You have no problem with the governor being in bed with the pharmaceutical company that makes this stuff and bypassing the usual process in order to force it on people?

Not to mention we have NO IDEA what the vaccine's long-term (10+ years) effect will be.

Let me put it this way - my problem is that the motive here is profit, not helping young girls/women. That should be painfully obvious.

Umm...

Rofecoxib
Thalidomide
rBST
etc...

Just because the FDA/government deems something "safe for consumption" doesn't always mean it is so.

Really?

Gardasil technology was copyrighted in 1995.

First phase of clinical trials were started in 1996 for Gardasil.

Hmm... 2007-1996 = 11 years.

11 years > 10 years.

The phase II of the vaccine testing were completed in 2001, as noticed in this article:
HPV vaccine testing

Phase III and final approvals took another 5 years before it hit the market.

So yeah, we DO know it's 10+ year side effects. To this date, they're very minimal.

The best thing is, though, that a competitor to Gardasil will be coming out sometime this year, most likely. More options are typically a good thing in medicine, so if Gardasil proves to have some side effects, there's always a chance the other one will not. And vice-versa.

You always agree with me GrayHam. You may be shy about admitting it, but you know you do.

I still love ya bro.

Hey, work on your math. We're only 30 days into 2007 so it's not really 11 years, it's barely 10.

Also couldn't help but notice you didn't address my other point. If you think this is all about women's health, you're terribly naive.

Umm, no, drug companies don't make drugs out of the kindness of their hearts. They're businesses, and they're out to make a $, same as the rest of us.

But I still don't see how that makes them wrong to put out a drug that has a great benefit...

Taking your logic to the extreme, and the only way a drug or vaccine could ever make it to market is if a company tested it for well over dozens of years, and gave it away for free.

I'm well aware that drug companies are in business to make money, and that's fine, it's free enterprise. You're either missing my point or ignoring it...I thought it was rather obviously stated but perhaps not.

It's not wrong for them to "put out a drug that has great benefit" and I never said that. It's wrong for it to be forced on the public by a politician who is aligned with the very people who will make huge profits off his actions. He's the one whose pretense is valiantly protecting young women when in reality he's helping his buddies make a buck. It's the very worst side of our political system at work.

As I said before, morally and ethically, he has no place in a decision-making process that will directly benefit people he's "in bed with."

I think you are missing some important aspects of this debate.

First of all..... Governor Perry is attempting to mandate these vaccinations via Executive Order. What he is doing is bypassing the entire legislative process. There will be no debate in the legislature. No committee hearings in which all sides can present the scientific facts and risks. No debate over the rights of parents.

Perry is seriously overstepping his authority with an Executive Order like this. In the absence of an epidemiological disaster, I don't see where he has the legal authority to issue such an order.

On the other issue.... The government will be forcing these vaccinations on young girls of 11 and 12 years old. Young girls whose reproductive systems are not mature and are barely even entering puberty. Do these scientists know what effect the introduction of this viral vaccine will have on a pre-pubescent female? Will there be any adverse effects on normal reproductive development?

I haven't seen any articles where there has been testing of this virus vaccine on pre-pubescent and developing females. As far as I have seen, the testing has been done on adult females.

All these questions need to be openly debated and evidence presented within the legislative process. This is not occurring. The reason why this process is not occurring also needs to be openly debated.

Governor Perry is completely wrong.

NYMadman expanded nicely on my point. If this is such a great idea, and based on keeping young women healthy, surely it would stand the test of open debate and deliberation.

Just for the record, Merck's efficacy testing of the vaccine took place in two groups of girls/women: 9-15 years old and 16-26 years old. The vaccine was in fact tested, by more than one group, in pre-pubescent and adolescent girls with no indications of problems. The vaccine is slightly more effective in younger girls.

Also remember, there is no virus as such in the vaccine. The viral proteins are prepared from microbial culture, so there's no cell culture, no DNA, RNA, inactivated or attenuated virus.

There is nothing I can add to this thread that others possibly smarter than I haven't already said. I will say that helpful or not, my main problem is how Perry did it, and how he does appear to be "on the take". Correct me if I am wrong, but how many states turned this down before Texas became the first to accept it? Thirteen or so? And of the Vaccine, what about all the males running around with genital warts (caused by HPV)? How about a vaccine for them so you can stop the spread of HPV, not just vaccinate the girls from it?

It's undergoing clinical testing for males, right now. They don't know if it'll work, just yet. But it is being tested to see.