N.H first state to offer free HPV vaxes

[Amila]

How lovely to know our taxpaying dollars are being put to good use. :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15958573/

$4.8 million dollars has been budgeted for this vaccine. And there are people starving to death. :

[mzfern]

What a waste

[LongIsland]

What's $5 mil (give or take) multiplied by 50 states?

[LongIsland]

From today's Reuter's Health:

The Australian government will fund a A$436 million ($341 million) national campaign to provide the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, to young girls, Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday.

Howard said a school-based immunisation program would begin in April next year for girls between 12 and 18 years old, as well as a separate program for women between 18 and 26.

I'm starting a separate thread regarding school-based programs in the U.S.

[MaddieMay]

I just read this on Yahoo's home page. Seriously, how long has this vaccine been out? Regardless of my stand on vaxes, I would be highly cautious of jumping on the bandwagon right away.

[Kelleybug]

Here is the article about it from the Concord Monitor (our local NH paper)today. I saw it while I was eating breakfast and started ranting. They just don't get it. Why not just take the $ and make sure these same girls are getting annual pap smears. My Dh just gave me the hairy eyeball and went about his business.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/p...8/1043/48HOURS

[13Sandals]

State health officials said the vaccine must be administered in three doses within six months to be effective

yeah, and it takes 5 doses of the DTaP to be effective for 5 measly years. Just wait - these 11/12 year olds getting this three dose regimin will be left completely unprotected (if there actually is protection) after 10 years at the most - right when most will really start getting sexual active in their early 20's. And they won't worry - they'll be like - 'oh, yeah, I'm protected, I can't get cancer'. I don't see the cervical cancer rate going down at all because of this vaccine. I see it going up.
LIke with most vaccines - they just aren't looking at the long term consequences. I worry about nursing homes someday suddenly having massive fatal outbreaks of cp, mumps and measles because no one has natural immunity and vaccines just don't work that well on the elderly. :

[cfiddlinmama]

So glad *not* I live in such a concerned and progressive state. : :

[A&A]

Originally Posted by Nicole!

I just read this on Yahoo's home page. Seriously, how long has this vaccine been out? Regardless of my stand on vaxes, I would be highly cautious of jumping on the bandwagon right away.

:

[schatz]

Originally Posted by Kelleybug

My Dh just gave me the hairy eyeball and went about his business.

: : : not sure what a "hairy eyeball" is but I'm cracking up!

I also just about blew a gasket this morning whilst eating my breakfast. Right on the front page of our paper was a brief blurb about how NH was giving out a cancer vaccine free. They have section at the bottom called 5 facts for the day or something like that and they write about one sentence for each thing. TWICE in this brief snippet, they said it was a cancer vaccine. GRRRRRRRRR.

The trials were crap (can you say no true placebo?), they haven't tested it on young girls, they didn't follow women long enough to see if it truly works to prevent cancer, they don't screen to see if women already have HPV.

This one and the new rotavirus vax really get under my skin.