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World Health: At a star-studded gala Thursday, President Obama drew big praise from AIDS activists and NGOs for expanding AIDS-fighting programs. But the real accomplishment rests with his predecessor, President Bush. After quietly helping to save 30 million lives from the scourge of AIDS across the African continent, it would seem that higher honors would be in store for Bush, whose AIDS initiatives there have been an astonishing success. Obama, to his credit, acknowledged Bush in his World AIDS Day speech Thursday, as have serious-minded Africa advocates including rock singer Bono. But among the garden-variety NGOs, media elites or activist...

The new Gallup poll of the Republican contenders is out, this time with USA TODAY branding. Just looking at the frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney in isolation, it looks like Romney is gaining. What I find interesting though is where that support appears to be coming from. Romney’s support may be coming from Michele Bachmann. Facts of the September poll real quick: 439 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, MoE 6. August’s poll had an MoE of 4 for the Republican subsample, using mobile and landline phones. Obviously there are other explanations for these movements from August to September, but just...

It's one thing to have a philosophical disagreement with the Texas governor on whether he should have mandated a vaccine for girls against a sexually transmitted virus. But it's an entirely different matter to spread false rumors about the vaccine, hoping to leverage parental fears for political gain. That's the depths to which Minnesota's Michele Bachmann has sunk in her bid to counter Rick Perry's surge in polls. It's conduct unbecoming a member of Congress, much less a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Bachmann used the issue last week at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa to land...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Gov. Rick Perry is under attack for trying to prevent a cancer whose yearly death toll exceeds this nation’s 9/11 losses by more than a thousand. On this issue, we are compelled to defend him — an unfamiliar role — and to wonder whether the master politician hand-picked his attackers. We speak, of course, of the other Republican presidential candidates and their assault on Perry’s 2007 executive order that all sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts. The order was soon overturned in a hail of criticism...

LENO: You and Perry went over this HPVvaccine topic. Explain this whole deal. BACHMANN: Well, there was a situation where it was an abuse of executive power. And that's something that the governor admitted, that it was an abuse of executive power. It was an action by the governor to write an executive order to order all 12-year-old girls to have an injection before they could go into school. LENO: But it was never implemented; right? He signed it, but it was never implemented. BACHMANN: Right, right, right. LENO: OK. BACHMANN: But it was highly controversial, and the Legislature in...

Candidates who bring the HPV vaccine into the political arena are playing with fire. You and I are just getting to know one another. While I’ve been writing a twice-weekly opinion column for Wilton Patch for the last year, and readers there are more familiar with where I stand on many things, this “Patch In” column is only in its third week. I thought we’d take it slow. Earlier this week someone sent me the link to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It was about GOP presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann’s recent comments about the human papillomavirus (or HPV)...

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's story about a woman who claimed that her daughter suffered "mental retardation" after receiving a vaccine against HPV could fetch the woman's family thousands of dollars. But the family can only collect if Bachmann or the unnamed woman can prove the story is true. Two bioethics professors have offered to pay more than $10,000 for medical records that prove the anecdote Bachmann told after Monday night's Republican presidential debate is true, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports: Steven Miles, a U of M bioethics professor, said that he'll give $1,000 if the medical records of the woman...

Heather Burcham died in 2007 when she was 31. Cervical cancer killed her. She was misdiagnosed at age 26, and by the time she knew she had cancer, it was too late for effective treatment. But she changed lives by living hers so passionately. She was deeply religious, quick-witted, loving, with a quirky sense of humor; and she was determined to save other young women. Her passion for a cause made her a "Person of the Week" on ABC's "World News" program in 2007. Heather likely would have been shouting from the rooftops in frustration, listening to the current political...

n Monday night’s debate, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum all seemed to be auditioning for the role that Jude Law plays in the film “Contagion” -- Alan Krumwiede, a blogger who tells millions that a vaccine to combat a lethal pathogen is actually dangerous, and claims both the epidemic and vaccine were created by government to enrich drug companies. Krumwiede’s conspiracy theory proves deadly -- and so will these Republicans’, if anyone listens. ....Don’t be distracted by legitimate, but minor, questions about how states should make public-health decisions: The thrust of this attack is garbage -- and deadly...

More than an hour into last night’s debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann attacked Gov. Rick Perry on the HPV vaccination controversy — or more accurately pseudo-controversy. It stems from an executive order issued by Perry in 2007 that required all Texas girls to receive Gardasil, a vaccine against the most common strains of human papilloma virus, before entering the sixth grade. However, Texas lawmakers blocked that mandate. Some critics argued that the vaccine was too new to have been confirmed safe, while others said that Perry’s order would preempt parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, possibly causing...

Gov. Rick Perry's 2007 attempt to require that girls in Texas be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, commonly known as HPV, has become a political hot potato. But Dr. Ronald DePinho, the new president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says the vaccine is not just sound but "one of the great scientific advances in the history of medicine." In last night's GOP presidential debate, Perry faced repeated criticism from other candidates for his HPV push. Michele Bachmann said it was “flat out wrong” to require that “innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through...

For years, Gov. Rick Perry has taken flak for his 2007 attempt to require girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, the most commonly sexually transmitted disease and the principal cause of cervical cancer. At the risk of angering fellow conservatives, Perry has always insisted he did the right thing. That unapologetic approach changed this weekend. A few hours after unveiling his campaign for president, Perry began walking back from one of the most controversial decisions of his more-than-10-year reign as Texas governor. Speaking to voters at a backyard party in New Hampshire, Perry said he was ill-informed when...

Bear with me, this isn’t a “sound bite” subject. The Human Papilloma Virus is an infection, and should not be a moral issue. In contrast, the vaccine against four strains of the virus, Gardasil, has become a political issue, even though the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now recommends it for all boys and girls. Governor Rick Perry has been criticized for his February, 2007 Executive Order that made the vaccine mandatory for girls before entering the 6th grade. Very little is said about the part of the EO that affirmed the right of and facilitated parents who wish...

When Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order in 2007 requiring all Texas girls to receive a vaccine against the human papillomavirus before entering the sixth grade, lawmakers balked and blocked it. Critics said the vaccine, Merck & Co.'s Gardasil, was too new to declare safe. Some said too that Perry's order would infringe on parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, leading them to be sexually active too young. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of Perry's opponents in the GOP gubernatorial primary, frequently slams Perry's stilled order. Perry has stood by his action, most recently casting...

Anyone so inclined, please say a prayer for my wife Jan. She's just had cervical cancer removed and while they're pretty confident they got it all, a little more prayer is always a good thing :-)

Days after controversy erupted over new breast cancer screening guidelines, a US health group has said women should wait longer to get their first cervical cancer test. The New York Times reported Friday that the American College of Obstetricians is now advising women to wait until age 21 to get their first Pap smear. The advice is intended to cut down on unnecessary testing and reduce the risk of harmful invasive procedures to remove non-cancerous lesions that may show up on tests but often disappear if left alone, the group said. The new recommendations overturn previous guidance, which suggested women...

Here is a video report that mentions a new study out today that says women can wait until 21 to be screened for Cervical Cancer, and only need to have "Pap Smear" tests every two years during their 20's. This report comes on the heels of a separate report that urges women not start having mammograms until age 50, and then every two years. It also says self-exam is not necessary. The video reports on a backlash brewing across the country against the new mammogram guidelines. . . . (VIDEO)

Harper: Controversal Drug Will Do Little To Reduce Cervical Cancer Rates Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15. Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia...

We have grown increasingly sceptical about vaccination in recent decades, says Mark Honigsbaum. Politicians have long known that a life lost today is far more emotive than a life saved in some hard-to-glimpse future – hence the problems with justifying the war in Afghanistan. But health professionals have been rather slower to learn the same lesson. That is why, for every parent reconsidering the offer of the cervical cancer vaccine for their daughter this morning, following the unexpected death of Natalie Morton, a 14-year-old from Coventry, there will be a GP or school nurse urging young women to have the...

A doctor who filed a $100 million lawsuit against The Ohio State University told 10TV News on Friday that he had no choice. Dr. Gerard Nuovo said he was punished after he brought the misdiagnosis of hundreds of patients to the university's attention. He filed the lawsuit in federal court this week, 10TV's Brittany Westbrook reported. Nuovo built a career in cervical pathology, has written textbooks on the subject and has worked at Ohio State for 10 years. "The key point of cervical pathology is to look under the microscope and determine whether or not a woman has been affected...

Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers were in a race against time to save their 15-year-old daughter, Jenny. As I reported last summer, Jenny developed a degenerative muscle disease nearly two years ago, soon after being vaccinated against the cervical-cancer-causing HPV. She became nearly completely paralyzed, though her mind was perfectly intact and she could still enjoy her pet parakeet, Hannah Montana, and Twilight. I've been E-mailing Phil regularly over the past year, and up until our last E-mail, one week ago, he had been holding out hope that they would be able to find a cure for his daughter—or to...

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to three European scientists who had discovered viruses behind two devastating illnesses, AIDS and cervical cancer. Half of the award will be shared by two French virologists, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, 61, and Luc A. Montagnier, 76, for discovering H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Conspicuously omitted was Dr. Robert C. Gallo, an American virologist who vied with the French team in a long, often acrimonious dispute over credit for the discovery of H.I.V. The other half of the $1.4 million award will go to a German physician-scientist, Dr. Harald zur Hausen, 72, for...

Two vaccines against cervical cancer are being widely used without sufficient evidence about whether they are worth their high cost or even whether they will effectively stop women from getting the disease, two articles in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine conclude. Both vaccines target the human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted virus that usually causes no symptoms and is cleared by the immune system, but which can in very rare cases become chronic and cause cervical cancer. The two vaccines, Gardasil by Merck Sharp & Dohme and Cervarix by GlaxoSmithKline, target two strains of the virus that together...

In two years, cervical cancer has gone from obscure killer confined mostly to poor nations to the West’s disease of the moment Tens of millions of girls and young women have been vaccinated against the disease in the United States and Europe in the two years since two vaccines were given government approval in many countries and, often, recommended for universal use among females ages 11 to 26. One of the vaccines, Gardasil, from Merck, is made available to the poorest girls in the country, up to age 18, at a potential cost to the United States government of more...

Continuous-Use Contraceptives to be Introduced in Britain Within Months By Hilary White LONDON, September 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The first contraceptive pill that provides a dose of active hormones every day that would halt menstruation, could be in use in Britain within a few months, according to the New Scientist. The drug, called Lybrel, is lauded for its ability to interrupt a woman’s normal fertility cycle and entirely stop her menstruation, potentially permanently. Its supporters say that once freed from their normal biological functions, women will be better able to compete with men in the workplace. The US Food and...

NEW YORK The latest clinical trials on the new vaccine that guards against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer hold good news for girls and women who've taken it or may take it, and for its manufacturer. Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explains that Merck's Gardasil is meant to fight off certain strains of human papilloma virus (HPV), which is known to cause cervical cancer. Though it remains controversial, there's fresh research that Gardasil is effective in fighting off HPV, Senay says, and the news appears to provide even more reason for young girls to...

Gardasil isn't exactly an anti-cancer vaccine, but it comes close. It protects girls and women against four sexually transmitted strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), two of which cause about 70 percent of all cervical cancer. It is also extremely controversial, though the nature of the controversy has changed radically since the treatment was invented. This time last year the issue was whether it would be allowed at all, a matter settled in June when the Food and Drug Administration approved it. Today the question is whether the shots should be required. Nearly half the states have been considering measures...

Schoolgirls in New York would have to get shots against a cancer-causing virus under a bill an assemblywoman will introduce next week, the Daily News has learned. Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale) will introduce legislation mandating girls be inoculated with the three-shot series against human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease that causes 70% of cervical cancers. Children whose parents have religious objections to the vaccine, called Gardasil, would be exempt. "This is a revolutionary opportunity to eradicate a disease that kills many, many women. As a mom, I'm grateful my daughter will not have to fear having cervical cancer," said...

In recent years, legal scholars have produced a voluminous literature on the rule of law in indirectly controlling social norms and individual preferences. Smoking bans provide on of the favorite "success stories" of those who laud the use of legal rules to change norms and preferences. According to these scholars, smoking bans affect behavior, even if under-enforced, because they change the social norm regarding smoking in public. With the advent of smoking bans, non-smokers who previously felt embarassed about publicly expressing their distaste for ETS are speaking up. By providing a de facto community statement that public smoking is unacceptable,...

Way back when, the closest thing to a "smoking ban" had to do with the age at which you could legally buy cigarettes. I think it was 12 or 13. After that, about half the teenage population seemed to be lighting up at least once an hour. At Morgan Park High School, where I spent four years in the 1960s, there was a white line on the sidewalk a block away from the school building. That marked the point where the high school determined kids could smoke. It didn't stop the hard-core smokers who really needed to feed their habit...

UNITED STATES, February 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A nation-wide campaign to introduce mandatory vaccination against the sexually-transmitted Human Papilloma Virus for girls as young as nine is being funded by the drug company that produced the vaccine. Gardasil, the highly-publicized vaccine recently developed to prevent HPV infections in sexually active young women, has been aggressively marketed in the US as a protection against the disease responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancer. HPV is contracted through sexual activity, with sexually promiscuous behavior greatly increasing the likelihood of infection. The massive drug company Merck and Co. developed the vaccine. Merck...

OPP probes nursing home death; Resident, 65, was left outside Gore Bay facility when he went for a smoke -ON Sudbury Star- January 25, 2007 by Laura Stradiotto Local News - Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home resident who was found outdoors in a courtyard Jan.16. Detectives from the Ontario Provincial Police's crime unit in Orillia were at the Manitoulin Lodge in Gore Bay on Wednesday. Nursing home resident Murray Myles Patterson, 65, was transported to the Mindemoya Hospital on Jan. 16 and died a day later. In a statement released Wednesday by the...

A bill concerning the mandatory vaccination of US middle-aged schoolgirls against cervical cancer is considered controversial and some states even try to pull it back. The vaccine is only produced by Merck Sharp & Dohme (Merck & Co) and is called Gardasil. This is the world’s first vaccine against cervical cancer and other diseases caused by certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Gardasil for mass-prescription on June 8, 2006, after a lot of clinical tests. The tests also indicated that Gardasil’s administratin to girls should occur before they become sexually active....

Smoking cigarettes is a clear health risk, as most everyone knows. But lately, people have begun to worry about the health risks of secondhand smoke. Some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what "the science" indicates about such exposure. Last July, introducing his office's latest report on secondhand smoke, then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona asserted that "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure," that "breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion," and that... --snip-- In addition,...

Let's walk through a medical minefield together. Merck & Co., a major drug manufacturer, has developed a vaccine called Gardasil that protects against some forms of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. Another pharmaceutical company is nearly ready to market something similar. Good. Experts claim HPV vaccines can protect women against cervical cancer. Terrific. For the vaccine to work, it should be administered before a woman becomes sexually active. Logical. So, health professionals recommend that girls as young as 11 receive the shots. Troubling. There's only one conclusion to be drawn by this tender age limit: more than a few girls...

WEST POINT, Pa. (AP) -- There's a not-so-secret ingredient used to make Merck & Co.'s new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer: common baker's yeast. But there's nothing simple about the manufacture and marketing of Gardasil, the first cervical-cancer vaccine approved by regulators. The Whitehouse Station, N.J., pharmaceutical giant expects Gardasil to become one of its best-selling products, and the company is making big changes to ensure its launch is successful. Adding to the challenge is that Gardasil is one of three new vaccines Merck has launched this year. The others are Rotateq, designed to prevent rotavirus in children, and Zostavax...

Girls as young as 11 should receive compulsory vaccinations against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, according to an influential medical journal. The Lancet published an editorial calling for compulsory jabs for 11- and 12-year-olds despite fears that they could encourage under-age sex. The Sunday Telegraph revealed last month that ministers have commissioned secret research into parental attitudes towards a concerted vaccination programme in primary schools. Last week the European Commission gave the go-ahead for the anti-cancer vaccine Gardasil to be used in EU member states. The licence allows the vaccine to be given to children aged nine...

HPV Vaccine—The Chemical CondomLast week I began to address the problem of the HPV vaccine as a tool of the culture of death. This week we need to address the "mental culture" that the vaccine fosters. This vaccine perpetuates the mendacious "safe sex" culture that underscores the sexual revolution and has wrought such havoc on our kids. If we fall for this HPV vaccine and its false doctrine of "protection" we can expect the worst aspects of the sexual revolution to be with us for another generation at least.Here is what I mean. Imagine the attitude of our grandparents' generation...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Women for the first time have a vaccine to protect themselves against cervical cancer. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday licensed the vaccine, Gardasil, for use in girls and women ages 9 to 26. The vaccine works by preventing infection by four of the dozens of strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease. By age 50, some 80 percent of women have been infected. Gardasil protects against the two types of HPV responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The vaccine also blocks infection by two other...

WASHINGTON - A vaccine with the potential to slash worldwide deaths from cervical cancer, the No. 2 cancer killer in women, should be approved for sales in the United States, a federal panel said Thursday. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 13-0 to endorse the safety and effectiveness of Merck and Co.'s Gardasil, which blocks viruses that cause cervical cancer. The company said the vaccine could cut worldwide deaths from the disease by two-thirds. However, the anticipated cost of the vaccine, administered in three shots over six months, is $300 to $500 — a possible impediment to widespread...

Can you catch cancer? In the early 1980s, US doctors began to notice a strange phenomenon. A rare form of cancer, once confined to elderly Jewish men in Europe, was suddenly cropping up among young gay men. The explanation? By catching a new virus, called HIV, they were also developing cancer. Now doctors believe that other infections, even simple coughs and colds, can trigger everything from childhood leukaemia to cervical cancer. Should we be worried? Sarah Boseley investigates Tuesday January 24, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Within a few years, girls will be vaccinated against cancer. Not every cancer - at...

A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity. Although the vaccine will not become available until next year at the earliest, activists on both sides have begun maneuvering to influence how widely the immunizations will be employed. Groups working to reduce the toll of the cancer are eagerly awaiting the vaccine and want it to become part of the standard roster of shots that children, especially girls, receive just...

Risky sexual behavior among Americans is putting the public’s health at risk, according to a new CDC study. Researchers found that the rates of early death and disability attributed to sexual behavior in the U.S. are triple those of any other industrialized country, and women bear the brunt of this public health burden.

DEATHS from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer - but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths. The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries. In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite...

Hey Kids! Want Good Sex? Try Abstinence.Warren ThrockmortonAs a mental health counselor, I am really troubled by the numbers of adolescents that I have counseled who cried for days and hurt for years because they engaged in "safer sex" within dead end, unfulfilling relationships. Sadly, they learned that “safer sex” can be hazardous to their emotional health. I think the current political debate concerning abstinence vs. contraceptive based sexual education has failed to include an important variable in the discussion of what to teach in school: sexual well being. In many contemporary sexual education curricula, young boys and girls who...

CHICAGO (AP) - That tiny bit of print on a condom packet is at the center of a raging debate now that President George W. Bush has asked the Food and Drug Administration to modify the current warning to include information about human papillomavirus, commonly called HPV or genital warts. On one side are scientists who believe that condoms should be promoted as a crucial line of defense against several STDs and cervical cancer. On the other are groups that advocate waiting for sex until marriage, and who see the dangers of HPV as an argument for their cause. Justin...

Millions more women may soon be tested for the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer, after a government ruling Monday that allows testing for the virus to become part of every regular Pap smear for women over age 30. Women will have to choose if they want to add the HPV test, which costs roughly $50, to their Pap. Women whose Pap smear shows no signs of cancer and who are free of the HPV virus can safely wait three years to be rechecked, according to new physician guidance being distributed in wake of the Food and Drug...

The Pill, HPV And Cancer LONDON, March 26, 2002  (CBS) "This study suggests that if you've got an HPV infection, oral contraceptives may actually be promoting the rate at which that progresses to cancer."Dr. Jack CuzickCancer researcher (CBS) Long-term use of the birth control pill can quadruple the risk of cervical cancer in women infected with the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV), scientists said Tuesday. Experts say the study supports what many gynecologists have long suspected - that there is a causal connection between the pills and cervical cancer. Previous studies have not ruled out the possibility women who...