Remember the outcry that rose when Texas governor Rick Perry attempted to make HPV vaccinations mandatory about 3 years ago? He backtracked when clear conflicts of interest were revealed, along with the pharmaceutical company's links to the decision-makers in the administration. (Link to Ruchira's earlier post regarding this)
Yesterday, a familiar news snippet surfaced in The Hindu, one of the best-known newspapers in India: The government had decided to terminate trials of a HPV vaccine under way in various states, citing deaths among the vaccinated population.
An in-depth report by Tehelka.com, dating from 3 weeks ago unveils the reason for the abrupt scrambling back by the government. Politicos like Brinda Karat of the CPI-(M) have been pushing hard and loud for the stoppage of these vaccine trials, which are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and supplied with free vaccines by Merck.
Think of what is at stake for Merck and Glaxo Smith-Kline, the makers of Gardasil and Cervarix, respectively- Billions of dollars in sales in a global market, to offset those pesky losses from Vioxx lawsuits and Rotarix problems.
The issue now arises of whether ethics were breached by not adequately informing the families of girls enrolled in the vaccine trials of the side effects and dangers. These are the protocols adopted for the studies, but the 'informed consent' clause was evidently given short shrift.
Comments