Gardasil 9 Vaccine Prompts Push for National Program
U.S. government health officials continue to push hard for a countrywide mandate of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. They maintain that the cost-benefit ratio of the new nonavalent Gardasil vaccine, which contains nine HPV strains, the ticket to succeeding in their efforts to get every girl and boy in America to take the vaccine. In 2006, a 4-strain version of Merck’s Gardasil vaccine was the first HPV vaccine to be fast tracked to licensure in the U.S. and it contained two HPV strains associated with cervical…
Study: World Vaccine Market Will Be Worth $45.1 Billion by 2022
A new market study by Kalorama Information, LLC of Rockville, MD estimates the value of the world vaccine market at $27.6 billion in 2015—up 11% from $24.7 billion in 2014 and 14% from $23.6 billion in 2013, reports Genetic Engineering Biotechnology News (GEN). According to the study, the market is projected to grow to $45.1 billion by 2022, owing to the continued…
A Sick and Unproductive America: The New Norm
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as “the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period.” It is a “broad measurement of a nation’s overall economic activity.” In the past decade, economic growth in the United States—as reflected by GDP—has risen as high as 2.7% in 2006 and dropped to as…
Birth of the Zika Industry
It doesn’t take much to create a new industry. Basically, all you need to do is create fear. Create a threat, an enemy, and then offer a solution to eliminating that threat and vanquishing the enemy, and… voilà, you have the beginnings of an industry. It doesn’t matter if any of it is true. You have the essentials of what is required to give birth to an industry and, eventually, a market.
“Consult Your Doctor” on Vaccines?
There exists a general belief among the public that medical doctors are “experts” with regard to vaccines. Newspaper and magazine articles and medical and public health websites frequently advise that, when it comes to vaccination, people should “consult your doctor.” The counsel is the equivalent of the “ask your doctor” to which TV viewers have grown accustomed to hearing…
Study: Medical Error is the Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.
Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new study published in the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). The study, co-authored by Martin Makary, MD, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and research fellow Michael Daniel, also of Johns Hopkins, defines medical error error…