Federal Health minister Tony Abgot has ruled out giving his daughters the life saving cervical cancer vaccine. In Australia 270 women each year die from the disease and around 40 women are operated on for the disease.
Seems Tony Abbot requires that the drug be free on prescription or as part of a national campaign before his daughters will get protection. On that I make no comment. However, it *is* ironic that the country that developed the vaccine is a laggard when it comes to giving it to its citizens.
The Pharmaceutical Benfits Board has determined it is of ‘limited’ use on the basis that they cannopt be certain it gives whole of life protection. In other words entire generations must be put at risk until ‘whole of life statistics’ can be collected to demonstrate the vaccines efficacy. This is idiocy on the grand scale… and if it wasn’t for the fact they are dealing with people’s lives might be considered funny.
Currently it costs $460 per person for the full course of three injections way beyond the reach of battlers and those on fixed incomes. It’s useful for females in their childbearing years but is most potent if received close before puberty, i.e. around age 12.
We still have a year or two left before we have our eldest vaccinated but she *will* be done. No obvious side effects have been determined and none are expectd. My view is that the side effects simply can’t be worse than the alternative… cervical cancer and a painful preventable death.
The Eclectic Interweb 