New Evidence Cervical Cancer Vaccine Works
From CBS News
(CBS) The latest clinical trials on the new vaccine that guards against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer hold good news for girls and women who've taken it or may take it, and for its manufacturer.
Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explains that Merck's Gardasil is meant to fight off certain strains of human papilloma virus (HPV), which is known to cause cervical cancer.
Though it remains controversial, there's fresh research that Gardasil is effective in fighting off HPV, Senay says, and the news appears to provide even more reason for young girls to be vaccinated, as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other experts recommend.
HPV is spread through sexual contact, and the strains the vaccine wards off are responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases, so getting vaccinated can significantly lower a woman or girl's risk of developing the cancer, Senay continues.
Tango’s Take
We thought that we would offer some more uplifting news on the HPV front (see Dish from May 10th for some crappy news about HPV and oral sex). At any rate, it looks like Gardasil is doing its job. Fantastic news. Now the “medical community” just needs to prove that the vaccine also works for men, prevents oral transmission, and has no long-term side effects. Sorry for turning good news into a downer again, but we demand results from these “scientists.” Good start for medicine, but consequence-free intercourse is still pretty far down the road—we still need to conquer stupid diseases, emotions and fertility.
Discussion
From the LA Times:
Although the vaccine, called Gardasil, blocked about 100% of infections by the two human papilloma virus strains it targets, it reduced the incidence of cancer precursors by only 17% overall.
[W]hen Koutsky and her colleagues considered lesions caused by all strains of the virus, the vaccine reduced the risk by only 17%.
Because researchers had previously believed that 50% of all serious precancerous lesions were caused by types 16 and 18, this rate of protection seemed inexplicably low.
Dr. George F. Sawaya and Dr. Karen Smith-McCune of UC San Francisco called the benefits of the highly touted vaccine “modest,†and said that young women and their parents should take “a cautious approach†to vaccination because of the many unanswered questions about its efficacy.
“The effect is fairly small,†Sawaya said in a telephone interview. “The recommendation for widespread vaccination of women after they become sexually active may need to be rethought.â€
Sawaya suggested in the editorial he co-wrote that the small size of the protection could be because other strains of HPV are filling the gap when types 16 and 18 are eliminated.
