| There’s a major advertising campaign on to promote a new vaccine, Gardisil, that protects women from cervical cancer caused by four types of human papilloma virus (HPV).
Merck, a U.S. pharmaceutical giant, is marketing Gardisil to women between the ages of 9 and 26. It has been shown to protect women against 70 per cent of cervical cancers that are caused by four different types of HPV. The vaccine is approved for girls as young as nine because it has to be taken before girls or women are sexually active to be effective. Health Canada approved the drug for use in Canada this summer.
Drug policy researcher and University of Victoria professor Alan Cassels has a couple of concerns with the amount of hype around the drug. He questions, first, how many parents would give their nine-year-old daughter a vaccine against a sexually transmitted virus. The vaccine has to be taken in three doses over six months before it is effective.
"That seems kind of young," says Cassels. "I know that I wouldn’t consider it for my ten-year-old daughter just because I don’t think she’s going to be in the high risk category."
Cassels is also worried about the cost of getting all girls and women in the recommended age group immunized with the vaccine. He questions whether there might be more cost-effective means of preventing the disease. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, there were 1,350 new cases of cervical cancer and 390 women died of cervical cancer in 2006.
"The dangers of cervical cancer are quite low… so if you’re going to drop that down to zero that’s a pretty small benefit population wise," he says. "If you got the number of cervical cancer deaths down to zero, I don’t mean to be callous, but that’s 390 deaths out of 16 million women at what cost? The cost of actually vaccinating every women in that age group is going to be huge to prevent 390 cases."
"Maybe there’s better ways to spend that money educating women about getting the pap smear and why you need to do it annually."
Pap smears test for cervical cancer. They don’t prevent cervical cancer from occurring.
Lori Boychuk, spokesperson for the Alberta division of the Canadian Cancer Society, says women should keep going to get regular pap smears even if they’ve taken the vaccine.
"The vaccine doesn’t work on all strains of the virus. We still need proper screening programs in place for women to take charge of their health," she says. "Vaccines are just another stream of prevention and protection."
However, Boychuk says the vaccine is good news for women.
"Any news about cancer where we’re going to see a drop in the incidence rates and the deaths due to cancer for us is good news," she says.
Right now Gardisil is not covered by Alberta’s health care plan. Howard May, spokesperson for Alberta Health and Wellness, says the province is awaiting the results of a review of the drug by the National Immunization Committee before it will decide whether to fund it. He says that review should be completed in early 2007. |
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