Results tagged “Vaccine Promotion” from Vaccination News

The word "cancer" triggers emotions ranging from fear to empathy to panic. But we cannot let our emotions cause us to spend money or create mandates without careful research. We need to evaluate claims of drugmakers, lobbyists and lawmakers when they seek money for cancer prevention efforts.

Here are 10 reasons why we are skeptical about efforts to mandate for school girls the HPV vaccine against the sexually transmitted cervical-cancer virus.

10. Merck and Co. (the manufacturer of the vaccine) has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.

The advance market commitment plan aimed at funding the development of vaccines for diseases -- including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria -- that largely affect developing countries is "a new way for partners in the private and public sectors to solve an old problem," Orin Levine, an associate professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Michael Klag, the Bloomberg school's dean, write in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece (Levine/Klag, Baltimore Sun, 1/3).

Under the plan, the Group of Eight industrialized nations would provide between $800 million and $6 billion to subsidize the purchase of new vaccines. Wealthy nations also would provide funding to pharmaceutical companies when they produce safe and effective vaccines, and drug makers would sell the vaccines at reduced prices in developing countries when G8 nations have provided the promised amount. 

(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 6 - Pope Benedict will on Tuesday become the holder of the first bond issued by the British government to help fund vaccination programmes for children in the Developing World .

Cardinal Renato Martino, one of Benedict's top aides, was scheduled to fly to London to attend the bond sale on behalf of the German pontiff .

"In this way, Benedict XVI wants to show his full support for this initiative," said the Italian prelate, who heads the Vatican's 'Justice and Peace' department .

Hundreds of mothers with babies, and curious children and adults, turned out at this vaccination center, one of 95,000 across the country. Serena Williams winced, as she watched as health workers administered vaccines to children five years and younger.  "I hate shots," said Williams.

UNICEF Ghana's chief of health and nutrition, Mark Young, explained the process of administering polio vaccine. "Polio is just given in drops, two drops, is not by injection, an oral polio [vaccine]," he explained.

The two time Wimbledon champion was offered a bowl of water to wash her hands, after which she administered oral polio vaccine to babies.

LONDON (AFX) - Norwood Immunology Ltd said, following a revision of terms for the acquisition of Bestewil Holding Ltd, holding company of Virosome Biologicals Ltd, it has agreed to buy the company for around 48 mln shares and 3.5 mln eur in cash.

Earlier this month Norwood allowed an option to buy the Dutch flu vaccine company lapse, having paid 725,00 eur for the call. But the company said now the revised acquisition terms have been agreed it is to proceed with the purchase.

Based on the company's closing mid market share price of 20 pence on October 26, and a 0.67 eur/1 stg exchange rate this is equivalent to a total consideration of 11.9 mln stg.

source 

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck & Co., Inc. today announced that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added Merck’s cervical cancer vaccine, GARDASIL^® [Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus (Types 6, 11, 16, 18) Recombinant Vaccine] to the CDC’s Vaccines for Children (VFC) contract for girls and women aged 9 to 18. GARDASIL was approved on June 8 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in girls and women ages 9 to 26 years. GARDASIL is the world’s first and only vaccine available for the prevention of HPV types 16- and 18-related cervical cancer, cervical pre-cancers (CIN 2/3 and AIS), vulvar pre-cancers (VIN 2/3) and vaginal pre-cancers (VaIN 2/3) and for the prevention of genital warts and low-grade cervical lesions (CIN 1) caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18.

"The addition of GARDASIL to the VFC program is a very positive step towards protecting the future health of girls and young women in this country against cervical cancer caused by HPV types 16 and 18," said Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., vice president, Policy, Public Health and Medical Affairs in the Merck Vaccine Division. "Inclusion of GARDASIL in the VFC program, coupled with private insurance coverage and Merck's Vaccine Patient Assistance Program, represent important means to facilitate broad and equitable access to GARDASIL."

New Delhi, Oct 31. (PTI): Resurgence of polio in parts of India could be attributed to faulty storage of vaccines, but an Indian scientist has invented a solar vaccine cooler for use in rural parts where electricity is in short supply.

SolarChill, a vaccine cooler developed by Rajendra Shende under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), promises to be viable eco-friendly solution, which replaces the lead batteries and the ozone depleting chloro-fluro-carbons used in conventional refrigerators.

Paris-based Shende, the head of UNEP's OzonAction Branch, is in the capital to deliver two units of SolarChill to its first Indian customer -- President A P J Abdul Kalam, who proposes to intall them at the clinic in the Rashtrapati Bhavan complex.

One of the few vaccines to prevent a sexually transmitted disease - and the only one to possibly prevent cancer - is opening debate in homes and doctors' offices across Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

At issue: Should preteen girls be given a shot against the human papilloma virus, or HPV? Or, are 11- and 12-year-olds too young? And if parents want the vaccine for their young daughters, as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee recommends, how much detail do they need to get into?

Questions have been raised nationwide since June, when the government recommended that physicians begin immunizing girls "before the onset of sexual activity." The vaccine, Gardasil, protects against the four most common types of HPV, which are known to cause 70 percent of cervical cancers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merck and Co. on Wednesday said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has unanimously recommended that Americans aged 60 and older receive the company's Zostavax vaccine to prevent shingles.

Merck said the recommendation for its product, which won U.S. marketing approval in May and costs about $150, will encourage doctors to use it and insurers to provide coverage for it.

Clinical trials have shown Zostavax reduces the risk of developing shingles by 51% and moderates symptoms in patients who do have outbreaks.

Right. Let's see the death rate from bird-flu disease:

Since it re-emerged in 2003, H5N1 bird flu has infected 256 people, killing 151, mainly in southeast Asia. Although it has been difficult for humans to catch, health authorities fear it could evolve into a form more easily passed between people and trigger a pandemic.

Do you know that only in South Africa there are more people dying from AIDS DAILY? Shouldn't there be more emphasis in this direction?

Anyways, the article is below. Read the "breaking news from WHO", if you feel like.

TAMPA, FL -- October 20, 2006 -- The search for effective anti-cancer therapies increasingly leads medical scientists to immune-based agents like anti-vaccines, or a "personalized" approach based on a patient's unique disease status. A new study reported by Tampa-based Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, achieves promising treatment objectives by exploiting both therapeutic approaches simultaneously.

Results from an ongoing clinical trial suggest that patients with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL), a cancer of the lymphatic system, can benefit from treatment with a novel anti-cancer vaccine based on the patient's specific tumor. The study results, published September 20 in the prestigious Journal of the National Cancer Institute, demonstrated that administration of the BiovaxID™ anti-cancer vaccine formulation resulted in long-lasting remission in NHL patients.

VIENNA, Austria, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Vical Incorporated (Nasdaq: VICL) today announced that a single injection of the company's lead avian influenza (flu) DNA vaccine candidate provided 100% protection in ferrets against lethal challenge with a highly virulent H5N1 virus (Vietnam/1203/2004). Conventional vaccines under development for avian flu typically have required two or more doses in humans, even with novel adjuvants, to produce the immunogenicity levels expected to provide protection.

Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a late stage developer of therapies for cancer and applications using electroporation to deliver gene-based treatments, announced today that it will receive an appropriation of $1.1 million from the United States Department of Defense to develop applications of its electroporation-based gene delivery technology for vaccination against infectious diseases including potential bioterrorism agents.

The United States Congress appropriated the funding in the Defense Appropriations Bill for 2007. The appropriation is a continuation of prior funding from the United States Army to Inovio focused on the development of a more effective gene delivery system for gene-based vaccines. Inovio is working closely on this project with Dr. Connie Schmaljohn, a world-renowned virologist and chief of the Department of Molecular Virology at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRIID, at Ft. Detrick, Maryland.

and I don't blame them. Looking at infection and mortality rate mentioned in this very article, I see that the bird-flu does not pose the same risk, as for example HIV/AIDS or Cancer.

According to the WHO a bird flu pandemic is a serious threat; 256 cases of confirmed avian flu have been reported to the WHO, which have resulted in 151 deaths.

Shall we compare these numbers to daily mortality rate due to AIDS in South Africa, for example?

Read more on "ill-prepared" countries..