Every time I see those commercials for Guardasil I feel like throwing something at the TV. From the very beginning of their whole campaign I just knew I was being manipulated. The first commercials didn't mention anything about a vaccine, but just about HPV, seemingly an altruistic move to simply educate women everywhere. "Cancer from a virus, I didn't know that!" The girls all gushed. Then a few months later, big surprise, the commercials start advertising a cure. Almost like, "you know that cancer causing virus you've been hearing so much about? Well we finally found a cure!" As if it hadn't been them that informed you of it in the first place. And now they are doing a huge push, if you hadn't noticed. Is it because they are concerned about our girls? Of course not, actually, the generic brand of the vaccine is about to come out, and they gotta sell sell sell before people go cheaper. I realize that pharmaceutical companies are just businesses, and they gotta make choices that appeal to the widest possible audience. The problem I have is there is just so much they leave out.
Most importantly, they never mention that HPV is a STD. Even on their site, they try to make it sound like it is more than just an STD because:
"Anyone who has any kind of sexual activity involving genital contact with an infected person can get HPV—-intercourse isn't necessary." I hate to say it, but many, if not most, STD's are like that.
I fully realize that not everyone can promote abstinence. For this reason, you might say its a great thing to have a vaccine for such a dangerous virus even if it is an STD. I'm just offended by all the partial honestly, and its hard for me to move past that. Especially when the main reason for the omitting of such crucial information seems to be they want younger customers. The vaccine is advertised for girls nine years old and up. So the conscientious mothers in the commercial say, "I want my daughter to be one less." If Guardasil was required to add that it was for an STD, I'm pretty sure they would have a few less mothers bringing in their nine year-olds for the vaccination. Mothers don't tend to think of their young daughters as sexually active at any age, let alone nine. But preteens and teenage girls probably won't be bringing themselves in either. So that makes for a much much smaller audience. Which means less money. The commercial should say "I'm gonna be one more" One more dollar (if only it were just a dollar) for the pharmaceutical industry.
On a side note, I'm afraid there may be a few doctors out there who don't do their homework when it comes to Guardasil either. Fae's doctor told her that the vaccine canceled out the need for pap smears. Um, yeah thats wrong on so many levels. Not that I'm saying don't trust your doctors on this but....Well, maybe I am.
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4 comments:
Wow, another long post already! We feel special. I don't think I've heard a single ad for this. Oh yeah, I don't get tv....
Ah, I feel a rant of my own coming on, related to the whole sad state of vaccination. I've heard later children are less likely to be vaccinated than first, theories being that you are more concerned for the firstborns.
I think it's likely that you are more gullible the first time around, and have done more research and aren't swallowing it all anymore.
The Hepatitis B vaccine was marketed to high risk adults first (healthcare workers and "promiscuous") but then they decided that all the little children suddenly needed this vaccine. Hmmm.... dollar signs anyone? I think I had better climb off my soapbox now before I hurt something.
yeah, I kind of go in spurts. Sometimes I just wanna talk about everything thats bugging me all at once.
I will keep a tight rein on myself because I have a lot of opinions about vaccinations, and this is your blog not mine. I've often wondered about the big push to do all your kid's immunizing by the time they are two. I think it relates to what AE said. When they are babies you are so concerned about their health and safety that you'll pretty much go along with whatever THEY say. And yeah, I don't think you can trust your doctor all the time. Not because they are intentionally misleading you, they are just people and they know what they know. I like my doctor. So I listen to what he says, and then I do whatever I want - using whatever bits of advice I find prudent. So, there you go.
I don't know if the doctor misunderstood the correlation between pap tests and the vaccine or if he wasn't clear when he explained it to Fae.
The question that I have seen in my research on the subject is "Should a woman get a pap test before getting the vaccine." and the answer is no. Girls/women do not need to get an HPV test or Pap test to find out if they should get the vaccine. Neither of these tests can tell the specific HPV type(s) that a woman has (or has had in the past), so there’s no way to know if she has already had the HPV types covered by the vaccine. (http://www.cdc.gov/std/Hpv/STDFact-HPV-vaccine.htm#hpvvac1)
Every source I have read so far says that you should absolutely continue to get tested.
I am always turned off by marketing ploys. I totally agree that most marketing ploys are manipulations and are offensive to all of us except for "Joe critter redneck"
The also say that you can get the vaccine as early as age nine. I didn't take that to mean that they think your daughter will be sexually active at that age, just that that was the earliest you could get it.
I think that they should ban those types of commercials completely. I don't ever want to see another tampon commercial, or viagra commercial again. Television! Good thing I can skip commercials.
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