Cervical Cancer Immunisation - Prevention Better than Cure?

The 12 year old girls in Ireland will only get this immunisation if their parents can afford the €600 to have it done privately. A group of 100 webforum members demonstrated against the withdrawal of the immunisation, to save €10 million, at the Spire today.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1115/breaking22.htm
http://wordpress.com/tag/feminist-open-forum/

A few issues come up -
- the immunisation lasts an unknown length of time - maybe five years?
- It is early days to know if it has adverse side effects
- the immunisation only works on one type of virus - women will still need to get regular smear tests, and this doesn't seem to be being made clear
- a big and unorthodox campaign was waged by the firm that manufacture the product - the doubt is there as to whether the decisions taken on use have been affected by this
- there is a possibility that the advantages of the immunisation might be undermined by a reduction in attendance for smear tests, if women feel they are safe: we simply won't know if thats a factor for a few years.

There is a need for an information campaign to get clear, accurate and balanced information out about these issues.

http://www.vhi.ie/news/n200207b.jsp

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/04/20/story32240.asp
Having said that, the immunisation has the potential to save lives, and Mary Harney doesn't seem to have looked further than a small financial saving in making her decision.

Not even medical card holders, who definitely would not afford private treatment, will be helped to get the treatment, and the tax relief for medical treatment has been cut under the budget too.

How can the government be made to change their mind on this, and to provide proper information on what the immunisation can and can't do?

It's important to note that screening is still being brought in. This will allow us to catch the vast majority (maybe all) cases of cervical cancer at an early stage, which leads to a very high successful treatment rate (80% according to the IT). This means that Jim McDaid and Fine Gael's comments on the issue are completely out of line. McDaid and various FG members on P.ie have said that the failure to implement the vaccine will mean the deaths of many girls (the exact amounts seem to differ depend on who you ask, go figure). I'm not quite sure what the FG leadership has said about it but the IT article about Cowen's response to their criticisms seems to suggest that they did mention some loss of life. Screening also saves lives and has the added benefit of definitely being safe (unlike the vaccine, which may have adverse side effects). Ultimately, yes, prevention is better than cure, and it's cheaper in the long term too. But it's more expensive in the short term, and that's the reality which unfortunately binds the government at this moment.

Its not possible to put a figure on lives saved for the reasons I gave in my post. This is a product that will make a fortune for the manufacturers and it is understandable that they are very keen to see it provided to everyone.

Screening is needed with or without the immunisation, as it is only effective against some forms of HPV.

Screening will only save lives if there is the ready capacity to laser treat pre-cancerous lesions when they are found. Is that capacity there? Today's IT says people are waiting over 6 months for bowel cancer colonoscopies that should be provided within a couple of weeks.

I think we could provide these things if we managed the budget a lot more tightly.

Can you see any logic behind why the government cut this one off ? Does the immunisation last only for 5 years? Why does it cost so much to administer it ?

from cactus' SBP link

Quote :

It costs about €600 to get the vaccine privately - €120 is the wholesale price - although if only one vaccine is chosen for the programme, a bidding war for the government contract is likely to reduce the price substantially.

Wholesale price 120, private administration 600... that's a big gap for one dose.

The price reported in the Irish Times for the vaccination, excluding administration, was over 300 euro, excluding VAT. It is given in a cycle of three doses so perhaps that is what the SBP means, 120 x 3. Alot of vaccinations are given in multiple injections.

Seems to be alot of madey up figures being bandied about.

They surely could have found the money somewhere else though even if there was absolutely no way they could reduce the costs of giving the vaccine. It's scary that the country seems to be that broke and willing to play with people's lives.