Precisely how the swine flu chronicle will play out remains to be seen, but there’s one business sector that will in secret be hoping for the worst — vaccine makers, that are more than $1 billion richer, a total that will soar far higher if, in fact, the winter outbreak is as bad as many fear. No one seems to care about vaccination side effects. Just the money.
Halo-worthy as vaccine manufacturers may seem, the truth is that Big Pharma is motivated by further than a need to save humankind, given the enormous profit potential from a successful vaccine. New blockbuster merchandise and manufacturer-friendly legislation have combined to create the global vaccine market even larger and more and more lucrative than ever. Yet someone still has to tie vaccines and autism together. After all, the vaccine market is growing even faster than the marketplace for regular pharmaceutical medicine, bringing in as way as $twenty billion or more and more, by some estimates. That’s because the markup on vaccines is larger than on pharmaceutical medication, making them especially profitable. However, as the employment of vaccines has extended exponentially in recent years, therefore have issues relating to their safety and efficacy from vaccine injury.
Vaccine Risk
Vaccines have enabled us to take major steps forward in public health, virtually eradicating damaging diseases, like polio and smallpox, says Larry Sasich, PharmD, MPH, an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at the Lake Erie School of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) College of Pharmacy in Erie, Pennsylvania. But vaccines are medication, he points out, and all drugs carry some risks. Though rare, vaccines are known to cause seizures, brain injury and even death.
In the early 1980s, consumers deluged manufacturers with lawsuits, most particularly parents whose youngsters had suffered complications after inoculation with the problematic DTP vaccine (immunization against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or whooping cough). Fearing the public health consequences if vaccine manufacturers responded by reducing production or pulling out of the market altogether, the federal government passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 to defend manufacturers from legal responsibility.
Legislated Protection from Liability
The 1986 act created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), that protected vaccine makers from lawsuits and set compensation standards for folks injured by their manufactured goods. As an example, compensation for vaccine-connected deaths is limited to $250,000 — a fraction of what might be awarded by a jury in a civil trial if, say, a child had a fatal vaccine reaction. In truth, this amount of money is like pocket change to drug firms, and they aren’t even those who should pay up — the federal government writes the check. This protection may help get important vaccines to market faster, but it doesn’t do much to guarantee safety, because vaccine manufacturers are shielded from consequences for product that flip out to be problematic or maybe dangerous.
Even, vaccines are genetically designed and opponents are forbidden by law from duplicating them. This offers producers a virtual monopoly on their products. Since they never must face competition, biologic-based vaccines continue to generate big profits for years and years and years.
Gardasil: A Cautionary Story
Protecting manufacturers this way puts customers at risk. In 2006, as an example, despite meager information to support its safety and effectiveness, Merck introduced and aggressively marketed Gardasil, a brand new vaccine designed to guard ladies and young women from cancer-inflicting strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). Among their questionable promoting ways, the firm gave hundreds of thousands of bucks in “grants” to medical associations to develop instructional materials promoting the vaccine. Even worse, Merck made substantial campaign contributions to state legislators — because it lobbied them to form Gardasil obligatory for ladies attending public schools.
However, this vaccine doesn’t vanquish a toxic disease like polio or smallpox. Rather it protects against four viruses that comprise seventy% of the HPV strains that cause cervical cancer — and even if they’ve received the vaccine, girls still need regular screening for the disease. Whereas study results published within the August 2009 issue of Journal of the Yankee Medical Association (JAMA) note that Gardasil has a safety record in line with that of other vaccines, serious complications (as well as an increased risk for potentially fatal blood clots) are reported. Gardasil is additionally painful and painfully pricey. The 3-shot series prices $four hundred to $1,000, which is only generally coated by insurance, and last year brought in $1.four billion in sales for Merck… wonderful, given that there’s no evidence nonetheless how long immunity can even last or whether or not booster shots can prove necessary. Therefore far, the vaccine has been successful in preventing HPV infections that precede cervical cancer, but since this type of cancer takes years to develop, only time will tell whether Gardasil protects against cervical cancer itself.
Moving Forward: The Argument Continues
Even in the face of a pandemic, it remains not possible to come to a consensus relating to vaccines and whether or not they should be mandatory. Consumer advocates argue for greater regulation and better standards (e.g., for new vaccines and alternative medicine, medical devices and procedures), whereas industry insists that government ought to keep its hands off. As for the vaccine shield protecting Huge Pharma from liability, some legislators talk of getting rid of it while others exclaim it ought to be strengthened.
Dr. Sasich told me that he personally believes that vaccines have the potential to do enormous benefit for society and that the vaccine shield permits science and technology to step forward faster and more efficiently. Whereas I agree that many immunizations save lives, I am skeptical about a number of the more recent entries into the vaccination arena, such as Gardasil. Perhaps makers need a stick as well as a carrot — financial responsibility for failures as well as windfall profits for success — to encourage them to ensure that vaccines are not dangerous, necessary and effective before introducing them on a giant-scale starting point to the American public, much less making them mandatory.
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