Cervical cancer vaccine effective

This is great news. One little thing bothers me, and that's the 100% claim. Nothing is ever 100% and I'm just wondering if Dr Barr was getting carried away. Also remember this is a preventative vaccine, not for patients currently afflicted with the cancer.

One question remains- Will the Palm Beach Post now editorialize that it was good that Jeb Bush vetoed that $30,000 appropriation? After all a task force wouldn't have affected today's news. Read here for a refresher.

TRENTON, N.J. - The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective, in the short term, at blocking the disease and lesions likely to turn cancerous, the drugmaker Merck & Co. said Thursday. Its shares rose nearly 6 percent.

Gardasil, a genetically engineered vaccine, blocks infection with two of the 100-plus types of human papilloma virus, HPV 16 and 18. The two sexually transmitted viruses together cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

Other types of HPV also can cause cervical cancer and painful genital warts. About 20 million Americans have some form of HPV.

The final-stage study of Gardasil included 10,559 sexually active women ages 16 to 26 in the United States and 12 other countries who were not infected with HPV 16 or 18. Half got three vaccine doses over six months; half got dummy shots.

Among those still virus-free after the six months, none who received the vaccine developed cervical cancer or precancerous lesions over an average two years of follow-up, compared with 21 who got dummy shots.

"To have 100 percent efficacy is something that you have very rarely," Dr. Eliav Barr, Merck's head of clinical development for Gardasil, told The Associated Press. "We're breaking out the champagne."

Merck shares fell 6 cents to close at $26.83 Thursday. Merck shares have traded in a 52-week range of $25.60 to $36.26 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The study, which was funded by Merck, was to be presented Friday at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

A second analysis, including hundreds more women participating in the ongoing study, showed that after just one dose the vaccine was 97 percent effective. That analysis found only one of the 5,736 women who got the vaccine developed cervical cancer or precancerous lesions, compared with 36 among the 5,766 who got dummy shots.

Barr said the 97 percent rate was more "real world," given that patients sometimes miss or delay follow-up shots or tests.

"I see this as a phenomenal breakthrough," said Dr. Gloria Bachmann, director of The Women's Health Institute at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.