The Needs of the Many

A new report suggests that while many women are getting the HPV vaccine, the ones who need it most are not:

The new HPV vaccine, which protects against viruses that cause most cervical cancers, has been a commercial success for manufacturer Merck, with worldwide sales last year of $1.4 billion. But some doctors now question whether the vaccine has been overpromoted to affluent women who need it least instead of patients most at risk of dying from the disease.

[snip!]

Women who die from the cancer tend to be poor women without access to routine medical care that allows doctors to find and remove growths before they turn malignant….

So the women who are at greatest risk of dying are the women least likely to be vaccinated. The root cause of both “greatest risk” and “least likely to be vaccinated” is that these women don’t have access to routine medical care. And no news reporting, no PR blitz, no advertising is going to change the fact that if someone has a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a pap smear, they are going to have a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a set of vaccinations that is sometimes not covered by insurance.

Oh, and one more thing. Those of us who can afford a pap smear may find that the lab went ahead and did an HPV test too. That’s a nice little extra fee for the lab that you’ll be paying (at the very least you’ll cough up a co-pay) on a test you didn’t even ask to have done.

In Closing: not sure what to make of 90 salads in 90 days; how did the nurse coming to your home to see how you and the baby were doing turn into government agents invading your home?; for those still unclear on the subject, why the public option is important; [gulp] structural unemployment to be high for the next decade; clothing so complicated you need a class or an expert to help you out; man’s life ruined over breath mints; too big to fail must die; famous last words, why oil won’t go back to $100/barrel; old fashioned judge insists on stuff like due process, cause, and warrants, why not powdered wigs too?; and Forbes gets it wrong again, getting a cooking style mixed up with an illegal drug.