As you can see by the title of this post, I've calmed down some since I read this article, although, I was still inclined to write a more fitting : Guyana's Health Minister, Leslie Ramsammy is a dangerous creep, and Guyanese should be wary of any attempts to mass vaccinate their little girls.
And this morning as I read the online versions of Guyana's newspapers, I was even more incensed that none of them carried a comment, question, or note by anyone (and there must be people who are as appalled as I am about Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy's claims about cervical cancer) to the contrary. But I did receive a link with the following article, which responds to Ramsammy in a calmer more rational way than I could at this point. Well said, Observer! Here's that article in its entirety:
posted by observer (Living Guyana)
Kaieteur News seems to have become susceptible to the same naivete by essentially parroting Ramsammy's scare mongering over Human papillomavirus (HPV) which he makes out to be a huge threat to Guyanese females. It is not by any stretch of the imagination.
"HPV is a transmitted virus that usually causes no symptoms and is cleared by the immune system," a recent article from The New York Times explains.
It is therefore good to raise some questions about whether combatting HPV is really worth it for Guyana or whether this is just a good excuse for Guyanese women to become guinea pigs for large pharmaceutical corporations.
We also wonder if Ramsammy is not being disingenuous when he states "in the past cervical cancer was thought to be a non-communicable chronic disease, but today it is understood that it is communicable, and therefore preventable.
“Since cervical cancer is one of the sexually transmitted diseases, before the introduction of the tests in another couple of weeks, the same education and awareness activities being undertaken in the fight against HIV/AIDS will be used in this programme,” the minister said.
That is a serious and manipulative over simplification: The Times article states clearly "HPV... in very rare cases become chronic and cause cervical cancer."
And even then statistically fatalities from cervical cancer in the developed world are negligible.
According to the NYT article. "There are 3,600 deaths annually from cervical cancer in the United States, 1,000 in France and 400 in Britain."
That means the estimates for Guyana would be less than 10 per year. That is hardly an epidemic and pales in comparison to other diseases such as diabetes or heart disease.
So why then does Ramsammy want to start giving the HPV vaccine to every nine and eleven year old girl? (Not my daughter, sir, never.)
The KN article amazingly states that, "Guyana has already made its decision to use Gardasil (made by Merck Sharp & Dohme) to protect against HPV." Really? When were any of us consulted on whether this was the right thing to do?
"And since vaccination and testing should work in tandem if the programme is to be effective, foreign medical experts (bet you they're from Merck), in collaboration with local practitioners, are at the moment wrapping up studies aimed at determining the specific genotypes of the virus present in Guyana.There are more than 200 strains of the virus, and the vaccine is only fully effective against certain types, even though it provides limited overall coverage."
So a relatively untested vaccine ( six years of trials) with limited coverage is going to be given extensively to young Guyanese girls whose parents have very little knowledge of the issues and would acquiesce to any suggestion by a doctor. These vaccines that normally cost US$360 are being subsidised by UNICEF...
We have serious doubts about the motivations behind this programme and others such as the rotavirus vaccine which actually resulted in fatalities when administered in some tests.
Guyana should not be some place where drug companies can come down and inject our young girls with their products.
