Here’s how you sell unnecessary vaccines to the unwary and unsuspecting

I told you about the local radio program here in Baltimore that recently featured a long discussion about complementary and alternative medicine.

A few days later, the same program looked at a number of scientific topics that included the discovery of new planets, the Fukushima nuclear plant leaks, and…Gardasil for boys (if you can call that science!).

The show’s guest was John Monahan — a science writer and former science teacher. He was on the show to dispense scientific insight into the wide variety of topics.

I was hoping he would bring some scientific skepticism to the topic of the HPV vaccine. After all, this vaccine hasn’t been around long enough to accurately predict if it’s genuinely effective in preventing HPV, year after year, for many years.

Not surprisingly, my hopes were dashed.

If Mr. Monahan is not on Merck’s payroll, he should be, because he made Gardasil sound like a wonder drug that may reduce risk of several cancers. And although he carefully avoided calling Gardasil a “cancer vaccine,” the word “cancer” was mentioned again and again.

Finally, he described Gardasil as “safe and effective,” but added no qualifiers and didn’t mention any of the very grave adverse events that have been linked to the drug.

And at least one listener got his message loud and clear.

During the call-in portion of the Gardasil discussion, a caller identified himself as a 27-year-old male who asked where he could get a Gardasil shot, adding that he was willing to pay any price.

And THAT is how you sell unnecessary vaccines to the unwary and unsuspecting. (But beware of resveratrol…)

Sources:
“Midday with Dan Rodricks” WYPR, 11/7/11, wypr.org