[e-drug] Vaccination campaign funded by drug firm

[e-drug@healthnet.org]

E-DRUG: Vaccination campaign funded by drug firm
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[copied as fair use; WB]

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2042916,00.html 

Vaccination campaign funded by drug firm
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian 

A campaign fronted by doctors and celebrities to persuade European
governments, including the UK, to vaccinate all young girls against cervical
cancer is being entirely funded by the drug company that markets the
vaccine.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which markets Gardasil in Europe on behalf of the drug
giant Merck, spent millions on what was billed as the "first global summit
against cervical cancer", held in Paris on Thursday with doctors and patient
organisations from across Europe.

The revelation comes as public health experts express disquiet about the
promotion of a vaccine that is only effective in young girls - possibly at
the expense of screening programmes that are essential to protect adults.
They also worry that the long-term effects of the vaccine are not known. The
vaccine protects against the most common strains of the sexually-transmitted
human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer.

Diane Harper, a professor at Dartmouth medical school in New Hampshire, who
led two vaccine trials, said the vaccine would not protect against all
strains of the virus, and that nobody knows whether vaccinated 10-year-old
girls would still be protected in 10 years' time, when they are sexually
active and at risk. Mass vaccination programmes, she said, would be "a great
big public health experiment".

The Paris summit was believed to be the brainchild of Professor David
Khayat, a Paris-based specialist in cancer treatment - not vaccines - who
has in the past declared consultancy and lecture fees from Merck. The
organisers were named as the Club Européen de la Santé, an institution that
promotes public health, but its president, Dominique Dupont, told the
Guardian she agreed to participate only on condition that Sanofi Pasteur
paid.

Celebrities, doctors and journalists were shipped in from across Europe and
the United States by PR agencies working for Sanofi. The summit, which
resembled a political rally, called for country-wide vaccination programmes.