Ajax - I really like that quotation and thank you.

The following may make some of you mad, but please don't react that way even though you don't agree with me - it is my opinion based on my view of life.

Most (not all) doctors and physician's organizations have aligned themselves with one side of the political spectrum - the nanny government side. Big pharmaceuticals, as far as I know, have aligned themselves with the business side. Yet they both move in the same direction.

I believe all of these people have good intentions. I don't believe in the evil conspiracy theories. The problem is the bureaucratic inertia in all big entities - governmental or private. Once they set on a course, they will not reverse it if evidence shows that they were wrong. No institution and few people want to admit they were wrong and did harm instead. Doctors fall right in the middle of this all the time.

This is the reason one-size-fits-all universal (socialized) health care will make things worse. Those of you who advocate it - where will you be when health care becomes like the motor vehicle department? Accountable for your error? Hah! You'll be busy advocating another governmental program - there is no accountability in the political system whatsoever unless you break the law.

Given the choice, free enterprise has some measure of accountability and has competitive forces to at least tend towards error correction (if company A does not correct their ways, company B can capitalize on this to gain a competitive advantage over company A). Government has no competition and little accountability - especially for their more collossal mistakes - like this one.

Notice that the problem here is not that some company has developed a vaccine - the problem is that government wants to force it on people. How can anyone not see that the problem here is GOVERNMENT? You may think the profit incentive is inherently evil, but we all exercise the profit incentive. The Power Incentive to control the people is more evil, because there is no 2-way transaction, and the easiest way to gain power is in governance.

I am a nurse who worked in a major university teaching hospital for many years.  I met many old and young doctors and medical students whose heart is in the right place, and they truely want to help people get well.  Not all, by any means, are greedy and out to make the big bucks.  I have also met many on the other side who are only in it for the money and lifestyle the money can buy.  They make me sick and don't have a cure for that kind of sickness because their hearts are closed to anyone but themselves and their families - not even empathy for the sick or less fortunate.  There are many people who start on the right path and go wrong also.  I'm just saying, we must not put all physicians in the same box and we need to appreciate the loving, caring ones when we get them, and tell them how much we appreciate them.  I am not being sexist when I say this; I believe that as we get more women in medicine, we will see the energy of compassion elevated. 

OMG, I will continue to play devils advocate here and I agree whole heartedly with Duane's comments. Again, I ask the question why do people continue to look to blame and point fingers? Take responsibility for your own health, be consumer aware (but not paranoid. This site is bound to make anyone paranoid if they don't have all the facts). Do some of you ever look to anything other than the pharma business to place blame? AS quoted (in part, quite conveniently I might add) in NEJM that condoms save people from STD's everyday but there are still plenty of unwanted pregancies especially in young women/girls who had a choice to use one but that does not mean they did. Having had gone through the whole HPV thing myself and having to go through a procedure to eliminate the 'abnormal cells' I can tell you I would welcome a vaccine for this. SO, what about the Hep A and B vaccines when people travel to risky tourist destinations or for healthcare workers? Live wisely not cautiously. The stress people build by all of this would put their health more at risk than anything else.

And finally, imagine you have a life treatening illness for which a pharma company has developed a vaccine for OR has produced a drug that no amount of lifestyle modification could help would you then be cursing a company that spent millions and billions of its own RX & D money to save your life or improve the quality of it?! Something to think about.

You should see the commercial for this vaccine.  The theme is "one less" and it has women of all ages saying "I'm going to be one less" for hpv.  Some of these females are African American teens jumproping, saying "one less, one less".  I've seen it on major channels at after school time.  The ad may as well have the young teenage girls saying "I'm going to have sex, so I'll get this vaccine so I don't get hpv.  There is no surgeon general's warning about any other dangers of irresponsible sexual intercourse, or any suggestion even that minors shouldn't engage in it.  If young women haven't thought about sex they certainly will assume that everyone "does it" after watching the commercial.  What has this country become...[:S]