Study: Gardasil Marketing Efforts Fail to Reach Those Most At Risk

In a comment to British medical journal The Lancet, Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan-Kettering notes how the promotion of Gardasil has failed to meet important public health criteria.  Click here to read the comment.

The drug, created by Merck, was approved by the FDA as a vaccine again cervical-cancer agent HPV.  However, subsequent marketing efforts by Merck, several Professional Medical Associations and even the CDC have not adequately served the subpopulations most at risk.  Poor women with limited access to regular Pap tests are of the highest danger of contracting cervical cancer.  Yet, the marketing efforts focused on wealthier, healthier women who were already at low risk.

The finding was anticipated by Sheila and David Rothman's August 2009 article "Marketing HPV Vaccine: Implications for Adolescent Health and Medical Professionalism."