Approximately 200,000 women around the world were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2002. Worldwide, over 270,000 females die of cervical cancer each year, with up to 80% of them from contact with HPV (Human Papillomavirus) in their lifetime. Read full story http://factoidz.com/facts-about-hpv-and-cervical-cancer-in-women-why-its-important-to-be-tested-for-hpv/Approximately 200,000 women around the world were diagnosed with cervical cancer in... more
Dating Site for Singles with Health Conditions and STDs Announces New Features
Goal of 8,000 Members Worldwide Reached
January 21, 2010 (MMD Newswire) Atlanta, GA - - Prescription4Love.com, the dating and friendship service for people with diseases and health conditions, announces exciting new features to help their members connect and interact. These new features include blogging, instant messaging, multiple pictures, public/private access, virtual gifts and an option of saving favorites.
With 8,000 members worldwide, Prescription4Love.com is fast becoming the Facebook or Match.com for those with afflictions and has filled the void for many lonely people. “We are always working on ways to improve Prescription4Love.com. We want to connect as many suffering people and give them a place to meet others with similar afflictions without the embarrassment and judgment. So far, we have connected over 8,000 people. Our goal has always been to improve lives through love and friendship,” explains Prescription4Love creator, Ricky Durham.
About Prescription4Love.com:
Ricky Durham’s brother Keith was the inspiration for Prescription4Love. Keith battled Crohn’s Disease (under IBD) and at times weighed between 75-125 lbs. His normal weight was around 150 lbs. It was difficult for him to disclose his disease to anyone, especially the reality of using a colostomy bag. Wanting to help his brother connect with others, especially others with the same illness, Ricky Durham created Prescription4Love. Although Keith passed away July 15, 2004, he was pleased with the work his brother had begun. Now 6 years later, Prescription4Love has helped over 8,000 people find love and friendship.
Prescription4Love and Ricky Durham are featured in Daryn Kagan’s (from CNN) new book “What’s Possible: 50 True Stories of People Who Dared to Dream They Could Make a Difference”.
The human growth or tumor is the most horrible and bizarre disease that causes the sufferer to have a trouble to speak, to eat, and even to walk. Not only this horrible disease or growth brings a defect to their physical appearance, but also makes them stressful and difficult to live a normal life. Read full story here: http://healthmad.com/conditions-and-diseases/unbelievably-most-horrible-and-unusual-human-growths-of-all-time/The human growth or tumor is the most horrible and bizarre disease that causes the... more
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Food and Drug Administration approved a second vaccine intended to protect against cervical cancer.
Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, was approved Friday for prevention of cervical cancer and pre-cancerous legions caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18.
The vaccine is approved for use in girls and women ages 10 to 25 years and is to be administered in three doses. After the initial shot, the second and third doses are to be given within six months.
"The licensure of Cervarix adds another option in the prevention of cervical cancer," said Dr. Karen Midthun, acting director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "It has the potential to save lives from cervical cancer as well as reduce the need for biopsies and invasive procedures associated with the necessary follow-up from abnormal Pap tests."
According to GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine is 70 percent effective against pre-cancerous lesions, regardless of HPV type.
"The vaccine contains two HPV types (16 & 18) responsible for the majority of cervical cancers in North America," said Sarah Alspach, a GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman. "But approximately 25 percent of cervical cancers are caused by other cancer-causing HPV types. Cervarix has been shown to reduce the incidence of pre-cancers resulting from cancer-causing virus types beyond 16 and 18."
The vaccine will be available this year, according to GSK, which did not divulge the price.
...More...WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Food and Drug Administration approved a second vaccine... more
A 14-year-old girl has died after being given a cervical cancer jab as part of a national immunisation programme, but the exact cause of death is unknown.
The pupil took ill at Blue Coat CofE School in Coventry shortly after she received the Cervarix vaccine. She died in the town's University Hospital.
The batch of the vaccine used has been quarantined by the local NHS.
The injection offers protection against a sexually transmitted disease, which is linked to most cervical cancers.
A routine programme of vaccinating 12- and 13-year-old girls started in September 2008 across the UK using the Cervarix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline. A catch-up campaign is now underway for older girls.
The injection offers protection against the human papilloma virus (HPV), the most common cause of cervical cancer.
'Urgent investigation'
The girl, who has not yet been named, died at lunchtime on Monday.
Dr Caron Grainger, joint director of public health for NHS Coventry and Coventry City Council, said their sympathies are with the girl's family and friends.
"The incident happened shortly after the girl had received her HPV vaccine in the school. No link can be made between the death and the vaccine until all the facts are known and a post-mortem takes place.
"We are conducting an urgent and full investigation into the events surrounding this tragedy."
A small number of girls at the school had also reported mild symptoms such as dizziness and nausea but they were not admitted to hospital.
'Tragic death'
It is thought around a million girls have already safely received the vaccine.
When the national immunisation project was announced, there was some controversy about the selection of Cervarix over Gardasil, which is used by the majority of vaccination programmes worldwide.
Dr Pim Kon, medical director at GlaxoSmithKline UK, which makes Cervarix, said: "Our deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of the young girl.
"We are working with the Department of Health and MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) to better understand this case, as at this stage the exact cause of this tragic death is unknown."
The global pharmaceutical company added that the vast majority of suspected adverse reactions have related either to the symptoms of recognised side effects or were due to the injection process and not the vaccine itself.A 14-year-old girl has died after being given a cervical cancer jab as part of a... more
On last night's Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow took viewers through what she called a "magic map trick," in which she crunched the numbers on a handful of health-care statistics, such as teenage pregnancy rates, infant birth weight, premature births and infant mortality.
Her findings? At the tail end of all of these quality-of-life measures are various Southern states. And the worst among them? Mississippi and South Carolina! And hey, speaking of South Carolina, isn't that where some of America's Next Top Health Care Reform Obstructionists come from? Why, yes!On last night's Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow took viewers through what she called a... more
The HPV is said to be more dangerous and threatening than SARS. So, please don’t be the next victim of HPV.The HPV is said to be more dangerous and threatening than SARS. So, please don’t... more
The incidence of tonsil cancer has tripled in the city of Stockholm since the 1970s and doctors at the world-famous Karolinska Institute there think they know why.The incidence of tonsil cancer has tripled in the city of Stockholm since the 1970s... more
This is incredible. When I was still in college last year, I was on the state sponsored health insurance plan. I went in to the doctor for a general test including a test for HPV. When my results came back negative for HPV, the school doctors really tried to push the Gardasil HPV vaccine on me. I told them I did not need it because I was engaged in a stable relationship with a partner who did not have HPV. The school doctors said I needed to get it anyway. They were so pushy about it that it alarmed me and I rejected the HPV vaccine.
I am glad I did resist it. This is completely obscene. Doctors should not be permitted to push these vaccines on people.
"...expressed my doubts early on about Gardisal, Human Pappilomavirus vaccine being pushed on young girls to protect them from cervical cancer. I hate to say I told you so, but, earlier this year, Judicial Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, listed 21 deaths and 9749 “adverse reactions” linked to Gardasil, including 78 outbreaks of genital warts and 10 miscarriages.” In a television interview with CBS News in May, Dr. Diane Harper, the specialist who helped develop the Gardasil vaccine, said making the vaccination mandatory is “a real danger zone” because it has not been on the market long enough to know its long term risks. “To put in place a process that says you must have this vaccine means that you must be part of a big public experiment and so we can’t do that until we have more data.” This from a woman who helped develop the drug! Please."
I've always wondered why the government wanted this to become mandatory. There's also been more proof out there that shows that Gardisil only protects very few forms of it (I think like 3 or 4) and not the other hundreds of other hpv infections. Marketing of this drug is off the hook in Canada...telling women to open their eyes and stuff."...expressed my doubts early on about Gardisal, Human Pappilomavirus vaccine... more
About a quarter of the nation's teenage girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday.
"For a new vaccine, 25% is really very good," Lance Rodewald, director of the division of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a telephone news conference releasing the data.
"We need to see that rate every year if we are going to meet our goal" of having 90% of teenagers vaccinated, he said.
But immunologist W. Martin Kast of USC's Keck School of Medicine said, "Twenty-five percent is not bad, but it's not good either."
He said data released earlier in the year by Gardasil's manufacturer, Merck & Co., show that only about 1% of Latina teens were receiving the vaccine, and "they are the population that needs it the most" because the frequency of infection is relatively high.
Researchers said the percentage of teens receiving two other relatively new vaccines also went up. About 32% of teenagers received the meningitis vaccine, up from 20%; and 30% received the tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccine, up from 19%.
CDC recommends that girls get the cervical cancer vaccine and that all children get the other two when they are 11 or 12.
Merck received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin marketing Gardasil in June 2006. Experts say it spent $100 million marketing it in 2007 and had sales of about $1.5 billion.
The vaccine protects against four strains of human papilloma virus that account for about 70% of all cases of cervical cancer in the United States.
But the vaccine has been criticized on a number of fronts. Some scientists argue that it is only modestly effective and that its safety has not been adequately proved. Conservative groups say that giving it to young girls implies approval of sexual activity. And consumer advocates bemoan its high price -- $360 for a series of three shots.
The data, published in CDC's Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, came from the second year of the agency's annual National Immunization Survey for Teens. Researchers conducted telephone interviews with a representative sample of nearly 3,000 teens ages 13 to 17, then confirmed their answers with vaccination records from physicians.
They found that 25.1% of girls in the group had received at least one dose of the vaccine, which translates to about 2.5 million of the country's 10 million girls. Only a quarter of that group had received all three recommended doses, but officials noted that the series takes six months and many girls had not had time to complete it.
Results are unlikely to be as good this year, however. Merck reported sales were down 9% in the second quarter, and IMS Health Inc., which monitors drug use, said U.S. sales were off 34% in July and August, probably as a result of the faltering economy. About a quarter of the nation's teenage girls received the controversial cervical... more
A Catholic school is to block the new HPV cervical cancer jabs for girls after governors expressed fears it could 'promote sexual promiscuity'.
St Monica's High in Bury will not allow pupils to be vaccinated on school grounds.
The school's stance comes despite support for the injections from the national Catholic Education Service and from the local diocese.
Across the country, girls aged 12 and 13 are receiving the vaccination for the first time this year to protect them against the sexually transmitted papilloma virus, linked to cervical cancer.
Experts believe the three injections over six months will eventually save hundreds of lives a year.A Catholic school is to block the new HPV cervical cancer jabs for girls after... more
A new economic analysis shows that the HPV vaccine, which protects against the viruses that cause most cervical cancers and genital warts, could be a good financial investment in public health if given to those who have the most to gain: preadolescent girls and women up to age 21.
Authors of the study, in today's New England Journal of Medicine, measured the Gardasil vaccine's value by calculating the cost of giving one person an extra healthy year of life and balancing the expense of vaccinations with the benefits of avoiding cancer, death and related expenses.
The analysis supports some of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines, including its recommendation to routinely vaccinate 11- and 12-year-old girls. Gardasil, made by Merck, is the best bargain if girls are vaccinated before they're exposed to HPV, or human papillomavirus, which is spread through sexual contact, says co-author Jane Kim of the Harvard School of Public Health.A new economic analysis shows that the HPV vaccine, which protects against the viruses... more
With 6,000 cases per year and an annual increase of up to 10 per cent in men younger than 60, some researchers say the HPV-linked throat cancers could overtake cervical cancer in the next decade.
"It's almost a new disease, in a sense," said Dr Ezra Cohen, an oncologist at the University of Chicago Medical Centre. "It's now becoming a dominant sub-type of the disease that we see in our clinic."
The HPV infections likely took root decades ago as the Baby Boomers were reaching adulthood, and only now are spurring a rise in throat cancer cases, mostly among men and women in their 50s.
No one understands the precise reason for the increase, though experts suspect it's linked to changes in sexual practices that emerged in the 1960s and '70s. For example, oral sex is a known risk factor for HPV-related throat cancers, and studies have shown that people who have come of age since the 1950s are more likely to have engaged in oral sex than those who were born earlier.
"Those people were in their teens during the sexual revolution, so they may be leading the wave," said Dr Maura Gillison, a professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Centre who has published numerous studies indicating that HPV-related throat cancer is a distinct type of disease.
The virus targets a specific portion of the upper throat called the oropharynx, which includes the tonsils and base of the tongue. Just a decade ago, doctors believed nearly all such cancers were linked with smoking or extremely heavy drinking.
Last year, however, Gillison's team published a major study that found stark differences between the risky behaviours of throat cancer patients with HPV and those without. The HPV-positive cancer patients tended to have had higher numbers of sex partners than the others and were far more likely to have had multiple oral-sex partners.
The virus-linked cancer appears somewhat less deadly than throat cancers that arise from smoking or drinking. A paper published this year found that 96 per cent of HPV-positive patients survived at least two years after diagnosis, compared with 62 per cent survival for HPV-negative cancers.
"They have a better prognosis, but these are still very aggressive cancers," said Dr Marshall Posner, medical director of head and neck oncology at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Centre in Boston.
While doctors had hoped for an overall drop in throat cancer as the percentage of Americans who smoke declined, the rise of HPV-related throat cancers seems to be offsetting any such benefit.
With 6,000 cases per year and an annual increase of up to 10 per cent in men younger... more
Marissa Jaret Winokur (recently from Dancing With The Stars) was at the top of her game in 2000, living her dream and being on Broadway when the unspeakable happened, she was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer. She went on with her life because that’s they way she wanted it, getting a hysterectomy and going on to win to a Tony for her performance in Hairspray. What was the reason Marissa had cancer? HPV-a sexually transmitted virus.
Marissa now is an advocate of HPV. Something that can be caught and treated. You can totally recover from HPV, if it is caught soon enough. And this isn’t a deadly disease, you just may lose your child bearing organs because of it. Marissa speaks to people about how they can prevent the disease, she feels that if she didn’t it would be selfish of her to know the information and not help others with it.
I had a chance to attend a seminar of sorts that was held by The HPV Test people to bring out the information to everyone. I myself have had a hysterectomy (and I have found out through the seminar that I should still get tested for HPV even though my doctor said no.) and I can still try to help others in getting their HPV tests. Marissa stressed that if you are over the age of 30 you must ask your doctor for the test. They won’t give it to you unless they find your PAP is abnormal…which Marissa’s was abnormal only after she found out she already had Cancer. So stress to your doctor that you are being an advocate for yourself and your health and ask for the test. (Also, I need to note, even if you have had the HPV vaccine it doesn’t mean you are 100% protected, you should still have a HPV test yearly.)
If your HPV test comes out positive it doesn’t mean you have Cancer, it means the doctor will keep a closer eye on you to prevent it. So you win in the end.
Now, Marissa got to keep her ovaries when she had her hysterectomy, and is now having a baby through a surrogate. (I also found out that she has comes to KnockedUpCelebs too, so if you are reading Marissa, HELLO!!) She said her baby boy is due in six weeks and couldn’t be more excited. You can’t help but be happy for her too when she smiles the way she does!
Go to the website, The HPV Test, and find out more information about HPV and how you can prevent getting Cervical Cancer. In the end, we’ll all be winning.Marissa Jaret Winokur (recently from Dancing With The Stars) was at the top of her... more
This man from Indonesia has a form of HPV (human papilloma virus) which has deformed his hands and feet.
He is being treated by doctors using a synthetic form of vitamin A.
My own Dr. told me that in his experience, people who have adequate levels of folic acid (vitamin B9) don't have warts from HPV.
But I haven't heard of a link between HPV and low vitamin A.This man from Indonesia has a form of HPV (human papilloma virus) which has deformed... more
The sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer in women is poised to become one of the leading causes of oral cancer in men, according to a new study.
Incidence rates likely due to increase in oral sex and decline in smoking. HPV is not just for women anymore.
The sexually transmitted virus that causes... more
What would you say if I told you there was a cure for cancer?
A vaccine that would cure one of the leading causes of cancer in women?
Well as of June 2006, leading pharmaceutical company Merck has developed a vaccine for the human papillomavirus or HPV. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and a leading cause of cervical cancer. What would you say if I told you there was a cure for cancer?
A vaccine that would... more
