[wagglebee]

Normal people have sex, it’s at least as common as swimming in swimming pools.

Give me a break!

There is absolutely no comparison between HPV and polio. Except in cases of rape, people CHOOSE who to have sex with. Before the polio vaccine, people were afraid to go to the beach. Children died and had their lives ruined; even if cervical cancer develops, it is generally treatable.

[DJ MacWoW]

My 2 main problems with this are as follows: This would normally be called a "specialty" drug since it targets such a small section of the female population. The statistics are:

Women and Men in the United States: March 2002

In 2002, the population of women in the US was 144 million

CDC Cervical Cancer Statistics

11,820 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2003

3,919 women died from the disease that same year.

Dividing 11820 cases by 144 million women comes out to 0.0008208 or 0.08208%.

This is less than 1% of the population that contracts cervical cancer. Merck is encouraging females to be vaccinated for a disses that is now called rare by NEJM and in a significant decline by the CDC. The rate also varies by ethnicity.

Comparing Cervical Cancer by Race and Ethnicity

My second problem is that they want to give it to prepubescent females when the first clinical trials started in January of this year on only 100 Japanese girls 9 to 12. The clinical trial hasn't even concluded yet. All other trials were on 16 to 25 yr olds.