Guardian: Vaccination campaign funded by drug firm
A campaign fronted by doctors and celebrities to persuade European governments, including the UK, to vaccinate all young girls against cervical cancer is being entirely funded by the drug company that markets the vaccine.
Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which markets Gardasil in Europe on behalf of the drug giant Merck, spent millions on what was billed as the "first global summit against cervical cancer", held in Paris on Thursday with doctors and patient organisations from across Europe.
"The "first global summit against cervical cancer" was held in Paris on March 22 and promoted the need for national vaccination programmes for girls.
The cost of the summit, estimated at millions of dollars, was "entirely funded" by Sanofi Pasteur MSD, the company with the European license to market Merck's Gardasil vaccine, reports Sarah Boseley.
Gardasil is effective against the most common strains of human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer.
The "Coalition Against Cervical Cancer" was launched at the summit, and promoted by a video news release produced by the PR firm Euro RCSG and distributed by AP Television News.
"Celebrities, doctors and journalists were shipped in from across Europe and the United States by PR agencies working for Sanofi," Boseley reports.
Diane Harper, a professor at Dartmouth medical school in New Hampshire, flagged potential concerns and described a mass vaccination program as being "a great big public health experiment."
via PRWATCH.ORG
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