FDA APPROVES CERVICAL CANCER VACCINE

The Food and Drug Administration announced today approval for the use of Gardasil, a vaccine developed to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV), strains of which are the cause of 70% of all cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts. Currently the vaccine is approved for use in girls and women between the ages of 9 and 26, but has been shown in studies to be most effective in girls and women who have not been exposed to the virus, itself the most common sexually transmitted disease. See The Wounded Surgeon, for my recent posts on this issue, and click here for the New York Times article on the subject.