Medicine, Not Morality
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
By Chris Fitzsimon
Winston-Salem Journal
Imagine that a drug company developed a vaccine for gonorrhea, AIDS or a form of cancer. That would certainly be a cause for celebration.
Well, something like that has happened, but because of this country’s culture wars, the public response is more likely to be a knockdown, dragged-out political battle.
Merck Research Laboratories and Glaxo Smith Kline have developed a vaccine for four strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV. That virus is essential to a woman’s development of cervical cancer and genital warts. The vaccine is 100-percent effective against these four strains, and that could mean the elimination of 70 percent of the cervical-cancer cases, and 90 percent of the genital-warts cases, that could be expected in the future.
The potential savings in human life and misery are enormous. Each year, a half million women worldwide develop cervical cancer and more than half of them die, including 3,700 in the United States. While several factors are necessary for cervical cancer to develop, HPV is essential. (more…)
Last 5 posts in Daily News
- Execution stalemate frustrating court - November 19th, 2008
- Give counties more taxing options - November 19th, 2008
- Going public - November 19th, 2008
- Should doctors monitor execution? - November 19th, 2008
- Colleges feel pinch of tumbling economy - November 19th, 2008
Email This Post
Print This Post
