The New York Times featured a great article yesterday about the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, being approved for use on boys by 2009. Since only women can get cervical cancer, the question is, ‘why vaccinate boys’?
HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, so doctors expect that vaccinating boys will protect women by preventing the spread of the disease. But how will Merck, the manufacturer, convince boys’ parents to consent to a three-shot regimen that has been marketed as benefiting girls?
“Think altruism. Responsibility. Chivalry, even?” the article quips.
What the article fails to mention, however, is that HPV not only causes cervical cancer, it can also lead to oral cancers of the throat and tongue (found mainly in men). Plus, it causes genital warts, which also affect men.
Has Merck hindered the potential of its product by marketing it as a woman’s drug?
Hailed as a medical breakthrough when it was first approved for women in June 2006, Gardasil’s main claim to fame has been its “cervical cancer vaccine” nickname. In the long run, will this nickname actually hurt the vaccine, as boys come into the picture?
In fact, Gardasil is a drug that protects against a variety of cancers – so it’s not just a woman’s drug. Trumping the “cervical cancer vaccine” nickname has given the average consumer the wrong impression.
Also, the New York Times article includes this quote from a pediatrician, about selling what is considered a “sex vaccine” to boys’ parents: “If you have an 11-year-old boy in your office the last thing he’s thinking about is having sex with a girl. He’s still thinking about getting past talking to a girl.”
Why are people still hung up on this idea of a “sex vaccine?” Hepatitis is a sexually transmitted disease, and doctors have been vaccinating children with the hepatitis vaccine since 1995. When I got the vaccine as a pre-teen, I don’t remember anyone discussing sex with me at the time, let alone, telling me what the vaccine was for. It was just another shot I had to get for school.
Why can’t Gardasil be the same way for girls — and boys?
I think the general public will eventually accept Gardasil (or its subsequent generic/competing drugs) as just another scientific advantage against disease. People just sometimes have a hard time looking at things like sex realistically and rationally.
I think the biggest issue with Gardasil that people have is that it’s so new and long-term studies have never been done on it. HepB is an STD, yeah, and we’re vaccinating 1-day old infants with it, which I don’t think is right, either.
This is the same question I have been asking myself for a long time. Why do women always have to take the responsibility of using oral contraceptives? Why can’t they make a birth control for men and they have to remember to take it everyday? Why does it always have to be the womens responsibility? I think it is a great idea to create the Gardasil vaccination for men and women. As long as they keep it as an option. Men should have the right to choose to receive this vaccination as well! If this does become mandatory… (which I hope not) vaccination then men need to carry the burden of receiving this very painful three shot series as well!
I haven’t read the statistics, but I would suppose based on the initial marketing, that in fact the amount of cervical cancers that it would prevent would outweigh the number of other cancers and other diseases that it would prevent.
If that is in fact the case, then arguments based on altruism are in fact the most valid as the prevention of the other diseases may not make economic sense.