Mandatory Vaccination - HPV, Anthrax, etc

I'm not one of those guy who opposes all forms of vaccinations. Some vaccinations are prudent. Global vaccinations eliminated the smallpox plague and that can only be an unqualified human success.

I was going to post a photo of a smallpox victim but they are just too gruesome so...puppies!

Polio, measles, and flu vaccinations are all examples where the slim risks of the vaccine far outweigh the greater risk of the infection. Each has recorded devastating epidemics.

In the 1940's entire hospital wards were dedicated to iron lungs for polio victims.

But just because many vaccines are important does not mean that all vaccines are.

Anthrax
As noted yesterday, US government scientists want to experiment with an anthrax vaccine on children. Since 2002, not a single American has died from anthrax however the FDA reports that at least 44 American servicemembers died from the anthrax vaccine. There is no evidence that anthrax vaccinations have prevented a single case of the disease. By the by, according to Johns Hopkins, the vaccinations cost $90 per dose.

HPV
There is a movement for the mandatory vaccination of all children, age 12 and up, for the Human Papilloma Virus. The virus itself is not dangerous, it causes warts. Some 80% of adults, at one time or another, have caught HPV. But as a venereal disease in women the warts, over the course of many years, can develop into cervical cancer. Over 4,000 women in the US die of cervical cancer annually.

On the one hand, saving 4,000 lives is a good thing. On the other hand, the vaccine cost $375 for the three shot series; that's billions of dollars a year. It only works on the four most common of the 200 strains of HPV. It is probable that, deprived of competition, other strains will replace the targeted strains. And it is not completely successful with the targeted strains which suggests the virus might, in time, adapt.

Mandatory vaccination is a boon for GlaxoSmithKline and Merck (manufacturers of the vaccines). As a voluntary vaccine Merck makes some $200 million a year from its HPV product. Made mandatory that should rise to well over $1 billion annually. GSK would see a similar increase.

One wonders how much the mandatory vaccination movement is driven by real health concerns and how much is a BigPharma PR campaign.