We have just SO, SO many serious problems in the US that our political system, scientific process and our society just currently isn't up to the task of responding to with particularly effective action... But perhaps speaking out like this is a start... but the integrity of all these vast "systems" is really the issue here for me.
Improving human health is the benefit/ultimate source of money. And research, development and product costs all add up to a big cost. Plus how much??? Some profit absolutely, advertising... But how this warrents $10 billion, $100 billion!? looks like another case of how US "healthcare" is about neither health nor caring but greed, greed and more greed.
I got interested in STD's lately and read up on Human Papilloma Virus, HPV, which, oversimplified, everyone gets and sometimes causes the very bothersome and expensive to treat genital warts and the deadly cervical cancer (which kills half of the 13,000 women in the US who get it).
It's complicated but I don't think our society, political system is doing the job here.... AGAIN.
Merck is spending millions in the US on advertising Gardasil to the consumer, it's in the process of being mandated by the public health system and third party insurers will pay for it (because overall it's cheaper than treatment). Merck alone chose a price of $360. Consider the money flow since $360 will hopefully be collected from about 30 million young women in the US alone. And vaccinating men and older women is likely as well. So, $10 Billion is immediately forcasted US sales, plus international sales, future sales to males, booster shots?.. Are we talking over $100 billion here eventually??? Much more??? Perhaps the price will quickly fall to $10 but still... Data point: $1.5 billion in Garasil sales for 2007.
Details: Vaccines are one-time sales versus a stready revenue stream of a chronic disease drug. It costs hundreds of millions to create these little miracles, so true. Clinical trials, etc. are expensive and long term.
GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix has approval in the UK, EU, Austrailia and otherplaces but not the US and is priced slightly cheaper because it doesn't protect against genital warts. The UK's health service choose the cheaper Cervarix loosing the chance to protect an entire nation against genital warts and the agreed price is confidential. That decision was made to be cost-effective, probably wisely, but is the price (cost) wise?
The University of Rochester in New York, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Queensland University in Brisbane, Australia, have claimed responsibility for original work leading to the Merck or GlaxoSmithKline vaccine. The companies have license agreements with all parties. I don't know what the cost of these are.
It's not clear that Gardasil is even a good contribution to improving human health! It's of course of baffling complexity. But in short, many things are going on that mean women get the cancer even though the vaccine prevents the targeted HPV infections. Maybe other types of HPV fill in the biological niche for the successfully targeted strains and cause the cancer perhaps. The "latency" from infection to cancer is very roughly 20 years, so certainty is not possible in 5 or even 10 years. The integrity of science is key here... and we know how that's been under attack for a long time.
Anything remotely about sex in the US seems to rile just about everyone up, and Gardasil is no exception. News stories based on sensational, frightening annecdotal stories of serious harm have appeared. Political groups line up to grind their ax "on both sides" claiming it promotes promiscuity and sex, is an attack on women's health, an attack on civil rights (to NOT be mandated), is a big-pharma money making scam without merits, etc. And then, those groups are later discovered to have taken substantial contributions from Merck.
Ultimately DailyKos, the web, etc. is great for exposing and publicizing issues, but in a world so complicated and interrelated, this will fail to create needed changes without some systemic changes leading to greater integrity and shared values. Obama is encouraging this way.