However controversial Merck’s cervical cancer vaccine
Gardasil has been considered since approval, about a quarter of the nation’s
teenage girls received it in 2007, according to a report released Thursday by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The percentage is “very good,” Lance Rodewald, director of
the division of immunization services at the CDC, said but “We need to see that
rate every year if we are going to meet our goal.” Federal health officials are
pushing for 90 percent immunization rates for all recommended shots.
The CDC based its report on data provided by 3,000 girls
nationwide. The results showed 25.1 percent of the teen girls (ages 13 to 17)
in the survey had received at least one dose of Gardasil.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil in 2006
for use in girls and women aged 9-26 to prevent infections with four strains of
the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes most genital warts and cervical
cancers. The vaccine is administered in a three-dose series. There are over 100
different strains of the human papillomavirus and about 40 of them trigger genital
infections. Of those 40, about half can cause cancer. The vaccine is efficient
only regarding the prevention of four types of the virus that may lead to 90
percent of genital warts and 70 percent of cervical cancer. Two of those HPV strains
can also cause some vulvar and vaginal cancers. That’s why, in September, the
FDA approved Gardasil to prevent vulvar and vaginal cancers, which effect more
than 5,000 women annually in the United States.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer
death in women worldwide, resulting in nearly a half-million diagnoses and
280,000 deaths each year. In 2007, there were an estimated 11,000 new cases of
cervical cancer and 3,600 deaths in the US.
Gardasil had sales of about $1.5 billion in 2007, which
means a real success for Merck. Cervarix, a similar vaccine made by rival
GlaxoSmithKline, is expected to hit the market by the middle of 2009.
The CDC recommends that girls get the cervical cancer
vaccine and that all children get the other two when they are 11 or 12. Most girls of this age are not yet
sexually active and will achieve a maximum protection.
However, opponents to the drug demand that Gardasil be
prescribed only to women over 18 years old, claiming that the drug may not be
as safe as it is said to be and that it also gives young women a false sense of
security when it comes to sexually transmitted disease.
On the other hand, a recent study carried by Harvard School
of Public Health researchers concluded that, if the vaccine is administered to
females before they become sexually active, the measure proves very
cost-effective in terms of preventing cervical cancer.
The CDC survey also found an increase since 2006 in vaccines
for tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, and rubella. About 32
percent of teens received the meningitis vaccine, up from 20 percent and 30
percent received the tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccine, up from 19
percent.
