HPV vaccine program

A pretty decent article in Macleans on the HPV vaccine. Gardasil is a human papilloma virus vaccine that is scheduled to be part of a massive vaccination program of young girls starting this September. The vaccine targets strains 16 & 18 which account for causing 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. It does a poor job of talking about the percentage of adverse events associated with inoculation (probably exceedingly low), however, it still makes one wonder about whether this is really the health priority that we are being led to believe. It also explains a bit of the politics that surround the approval of this vaccination program. I also hope that the makers of the vaccine, Merck & Co., have learned their lesson with Vioxx. On the scale of a vaccination program even rare problems could have serious financial consequences for the pharma giant.