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CDC Recommends Gardasil vaccination

by Ed Vawter @ 11:47 am. Filed under Health News

I’ve posted before about Merck’s cancer vaccine Gardasil. You can see my other posts for further details. The final step after the FDA approval was whether or not the CDC would recommend it be used generally for young girls.

Merck Gets Vaccine-Panel Backing for Gardasil Shot Bloomberg.com

Today, the CDC did recommend the vaccine for all girls age 11-12 and as young as 9 at their doctors discretion. Since the vaccine is 100% effective in the clinical trials it should go a long way towards reducing or eliminating cervical cancer in women.

Merck is also looking at the vaccine in young boys and those clinical trials should be conclude by 2008. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) can also cause cancers and other problems in men.

It will be interesting to see what price Merck charges and whether or not insurance companies will cover it. Hopefully the relatively low cost of the vaccine will convince insurance companies that it is better than trying to catch the disease and treat it later.

Technorati Tags: Gardasil, Merck, vaccine

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Ventria’s Biotech Rice To Be Grown In Kansas?!

by Ed Vawter @ 11:26 am. Filed under Asides

Biotech crops seem to be getting a lot of bad press in last few years. One company, Ventria has developed a GM rice that produces two proteins found in breast milk and which could then be extracted and eventually sold as a drug. An application has been filed is not yet approved. The proteins would be used to treat diarrheal illnesses in children in developing countries which kills about 2 million children each year. Here’s an article from the Sacramento Bee on this.

Kansas opens arms to Ventria’s biotech rice - sacbee.com:

The company only has 18 employees and has had resistance in both California and Missouri due to concerns about GMO from other rice farmers in that state. They currently grow the rice in North Carolina and in greenhouses in California. This would allow them to expand their fields into Kansas and so far there hasn’t been local opposition. Also, Kansas has no existing rice crop so the fears of cross contamination are not there.

It should be made clear that this rice is not for human consumption. It will be collected and further processed to extract the proteins.

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Technorati Tags: biotech crops, Ventria

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