News tagged with 'Cervical Cancer'

A survey of physicians finds many doctors perform unneeded pap smears, ignoring guidelines issued by major medical organizations and adding to health care costs.

Cervarix has been approved for use in girls and women to fight cervical cancer, the FDA announced on Friday, the same day that Gardasil got approval for expanded use in boys and men to fight genital warts.

While more girls are getting the first shot of Gardasil in 2008 than a year earlier, fewer than one in five completes the three-shot series, reports the CDC.

If the Food and Drug Administration follows the advice of its panels, Gardasil could soon be approved for use in boys and young men.

Merck's Gardasil was promoted by medical societies after they received a total of $750,000. Medicine and marketing were blurred, says the published study.

A study in the British medical journal, The Lancet, finds the Gardasil rival drug for human papillomavirus, Cervarix is effective against five viruses, two most common virus types that cause HPV or human papillomavirus as well as three of the next most common cervical cancer causers. The study was funded by the vaccine maker, GlaxoSmithKline. 

The Merck drug featured in the “One Less” campaign has been updated to receive a warning about the potential for fainting after some young teens suffered jerking movements and seizures after being inoculated. Add that to the more than 13,000 adverse events reported including 39 deaths in the three years since the drug has been on the market.

16-year-old Ashley Ryburn received one Gardasil vaccine along with a meningitis shot. Then she received another Gardasil shot, her second in the three-series vaccines.  She is now disabled, in pain, faints, has numb legs, not at all the athlete she used to be. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the sexually transmitted infection, chlamydia is at a record million plus new cases annually. The data, included in the annual Surveillance Report on STDs, indicates better reporting may account for the numbers.

The FDA wants more data on Gardasil before it gives the green light for use in older women. Gardasil, which reduces the risk of two types of cervical cancer and genital warts, is less effective in women who have already been exposed to the virus which causes cancer. 

The Gardasil vaccine, intended to prevent cervical cancer in girls and women shows strong signs of preventing genital warts in men, according to a new study funded by Merck, who manufactures Gardasil.

The debate about whether or not to require government mandates for immunizing girls with Gardasil, against human papillomavirus (HPV) is again the center of debate as three scholars argue that local and state government should not require cervical cancer vaccinations for constitutional and public health reasons.

Twenty-five thousand cases of human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers occurred in 38 states and the District of Columbia annually during 1998-2003, according to studies conducted by CDC.

The CDC and FDA are both promoting the use of Gardasil in an unprecedented way.  Reporting on the two-year post-approval monitoring the the drug, the CDC says its safe and the 20 plus deaths are not related to the vaccine.

A new, inexpensive test has been developed to detect cervical cancers. It will be used within a few month in rural areas where clinics and skilled health care workers are scarce and could save thousands of lives among women in developing countries, where presently only 5 percent of women are screened.