Where The Boys Are: Merck, Gardasil And Warts
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // November 13th, 2008 // 7:57 am
The controversial HPV vaccine proved 90 percent effective in preventing that embarassing and uncomfortable affliction known as genital warts in men. The results, which are to be presented today at a medical conference in Europe, will be used by the drugmaker to buttress its case to market Gardasil to boys.
You may recall that Gardasil was approved two years to prevent HPV, which can lead to cervical cancer, in girls and women between ages 9 and 26 years old. Men can spread the virus and the vaccine was aproved for them in 40 countries, but not the US, although as the Associated Press reminds us, there still is no medical proof Gardasil prevents penile cancer or other HPV-associated cancers in men. There also is no evidence the vaccine prevents the spread of HPV from men to women.
The new Merck study involved about 4,065 men ages 16 to 26 from nearly 20 countries, and included more than 1,000 men in the US. The results showed Gardasil was 90 percent effective in preventing genital warts, with only 15 cases of persistent infection in a vaccinated group of males as compared to 101 cases in a group that was given a placebo. And it was about 45 percent effective in preventing infection with the four strains of HPV that the vaccine targets.
“This opens up some really important questions for further research,” Anna Giuliano of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida Giuliano, tells the AP. “The cancers in men which are HPV related are really only now being understood.”
The results are “very exciting,” but it’s not clear they will be enough to persuade many American families to get their teenage boys vaccinated, according to Maura Gillison, an HPV researcher at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the Merck study, who notes that only 1 in 4 girls have been vaccinated.
“When parents are sitting in a room discussing with a pediatrician whether to vaccinate their child against anything, they’d like to know what the potential benefit is. A parent might say ‘I’m not inclined to vaccinate my child to prevent a benign genital wart,’” she tells the AP.
Government officials have been awaiting this interim analysis from Merck, and are eager to see additional info about Gardasil’s effect on precancerous lesions, according to Lauri Markowitz, an HPV expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s obviously encouraging data but the policy makers will be looking at variety of different issues,” including how cost effective the shot would be if used in males, she tells the AP.
Source: The Associated Press
Anne
Gardasil Linked to Seventy-Eight Outbreaks of Genital Warts
http://www.naturalnews.com/024774.html
Anne
Merck’s Gardasil Should Not Be Mandatory: Report
http://tinyurl.com/5luuk9
Nathan
Ed writes: “There still is no medical proof Gardasil prevents penile cancer or other HPV-associated cancers in men.”
I don’t see how this is very relevant. There is still no medical proof that gardasil prevents cervical cancer in women. To my knowledge, it has only been shown to prevent pre-cancerous legions (100% effectively). The HPV-cancer link is so well established that actual proof of protection against cancer wasn’t even needed. I don’t think the link between HPV and penile & oral cancer is quite as well established. But when (and if) that happens, the drug should be easily approved for boys.
Ed also writes: “There also is no evidence the vaccine prevents the spread of HPV from men to women.”
Also, to my knowledge, there is no evidence that the vaccine prevents the spread of HPV from women to men. But this didn’t stop its approval for women.
harpy
“…it has only been shown to prevent pre-cancerous legions (100% effectively)”
Link please?
Nathan
harpy,
It’s from the NCI. (link at bottom) Here’s point #6 on the below link:
“Gardasil and Cervarix are highly effective in preventing infection with the types of HPV that they target. FDA-approved Gardasil prevented nearly 100 percent of the precancerous cervical cell changes caused by the types of HPV targeted by the vaccine for up to 4 years after vaccination. Two follow-up studies of Gardasil confirmed these findings. The studies also found the vaccine to be less effective in women who had previously been exposed to HPV types 16 and 18″
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/HPV-vaccine
Michael
This is off topic, but the headline for this entry is perhaps Silverman’s best. Well done, sir.
Ed Silverman
Hi Michael,
A belated thanks for your kind note. I once worked at a tabloid and, while I didn’t write headlines there, something about the atmosphere rubbed off.
And I kind of like the song.
Best
ed