Its time to look at the faces of lives lost…
In the early 1990s, faced with protests by AIDS activists about the glacier-like approval of potential life saving drugs, the Clinton administration changed the FDA drug approval process. They allowed pharmaceutical companies to “fast track life-saving” drugs by absorbing the extra costs involved. The unintended consequence [...]

Shouldn’t we ask the forbidden question at least once? Is it possible to develop a ’simple metric’…like PROFIT PER FATALITY? In a time of diminishing public health resources and increased public health need, should we not look at allocation of health dollars using a needs / benefit ratio.

The introduction of Gardasil (Merck & Co, Whitehouse
Station, NJ, USA) as a vaccine to the human papillomavirus
(HPV) has received much media attention worldwide since its
approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2006.
From the United States to the United Kingdom, New Zealand,
and Malaysia, news headlines have highlighted various issues
and controversies surrounding the HPV vaccine.

Human papillomavirus, or HPV for short, is the current leading cause of cervical. There are over 100 different strains of the the virus, but only a few strains are considered to be high risk.