Merck Has Better Things To Do With Its Cervical Cancer Vaccine Than To Make A Serious Effort To Stop The Deaths Of Poor Women From Cervical Cancer.

I want to begin my talk with you this afternoon by sharing with you two covers from Time magazine.....

This first cover, from Time's August 18, 1952 edition, pictures a kindly looking George Merck, the modern-day founder of my company. His intelligent blue eyes gaze benevolently toward the future. In the background, a mortar and pestle, an ancient symbol of the pharmaceutical arts, is superimposed over a birds-eye view of Merck's modern research and production facility in Rahway, New Jersey. Under this picture, a George W. Merck quote: "Medicine is for people, not for profits."

Remarks of Raymond V. Gilmartin,
Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer,
Merck & Co., Inc.
at
Town Hall Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
July 29, 2004

For people. Not for profits. Let's keep that in mind as we take a look at what Merck's been up to this week:

HPV vaccine can prevent genital warts in men

Study results bolster drugmaker’s plan to market shots to boys

ATLANTA - For the first time, an expensive vaccine aimed at preventing cervical cancer in women has proven successful at preventing a disease in men, according to a study released Thursday by the vaccine’s maker.

The disease is genital warts — sexually transmitted, embarrassing and uncomfortable — but not life-threatening.

Huh. Because you know what is life threatening? Cervical cancer. As a matter of fact, 260,000 women in the developing world die from cervical cancer every year. All it would take to make that number of deaths fall through the floor is an effort to get girls in the third world together with a physician, nurse, midwife, witch doctor, or pretty much anyone who isn't a total fuckup to administer a vaccine. Hell, even a pharmacist could do it. The result would be nothing short of a revolution in health care for the world's impoverished women. 

Instead, Merck chose to aggressively market Gardasil, its cervical cancer vaccine approved in 2006, not to the women dying of cervical cancer, but to the affluent women of the west who already had the means to prevent the disease. Now it wants to convince you to fork over almost $400 so your boy won't get bumps on his schlong if he's not careful where he sticks it.  

“This opens the door to a wonderful opportunity to prevent illness,” said Anna Giuliano, a researcher at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla.

Great, but you know what's even better than preventing illness? PREVENTING DEATH. Or at least that's what I would think if I were making medicine for people, and not for profit.  Maybe they see things differently at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. Maybe they could rename it the H. Lee Moffitt Center To Prevent Schlong Bumps. 

Reached for comment in the oncology ward of Uganda's Mulago Hospital, 28 year old cervical cancer sufferer Efia Matovu said, "I am so grateful for the nurse who paid for a bottle of alcohol out of her own pocket for me to use. It is such a relief at times to feel its coolness when my fever burns. My nurse shows me yet again the goodness that is in every human heart. It is just a shame that I have had the misfortune to be stricken by a disease for which nothing can be done. I can only hope that one day science will progress to the point where the suffering I have endured can be prevented in others." 

I don't have to tell you the quote from the cancer sufferer is made up. Because you know in the real world no one would care enough what a woman dying of cervical cancer in Africa thinks to make an effort to ask her for a comment. Or to stop her from dying. In the real world corporations like Merck serve up heaping plates of bullshit about people and profits, cover the bullshit in steak sauce, and tell you you've got a ribeye.

I am glad I don't have any bumps on my schlong though. Maybe my perspective would change if I did.