NationStates Jolt Archive

The planned national cervical cancer vaccination programme for around 75,000 young girls, due to start next year, has been scrapped by the Health Minister Mary Harney due to Budget cuts.

The vaccine was to be offered to all 12-year-old girls in primary schools from next September, at an estimated cost of under €10m.
.......
Around 90 women die from cervical cancer each year, making it the eighth most frequently diagnosed cancer in women in Ireland.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1104/vaccine.html

Well isn't that just fucking peachy. Not only are they effectively screwing 90 odd women/girls a year(and not in the good way), but the sly bitch Harney snuck in the announcement while the country was watching America. Utterly shameful. Call me a one issue voter if you must, but damned if I'm voting FF after this.

Wow.

It's not even like €9.7 is alot in country terms.

Note, this vaccination is already in place in England, Where no doubt it cost alot more.

Wow.

It's not even like €9.7 is alot in country terms.

Note, this vaccination is already in place in England, Where no doubt it cost alot more.

The radio says that it would have costed about €600 for the shots. Now to get it privately will cost ~€5000.

If you have Social Medicine, you end up with decisions like this- once it's all about the Bureaucracy, it's all about the Budget, and what gets cut is the thing that will generate enough anger to get the budget increased so it can be added back in.

In the Netherlands it has been canceled for now, too, but that's because this vaccination and its side effects have not been properly tested on this age group. It's extremely pushed by a lobby of the vaccination's developers while experts are much more sceptical.

I don't get the hullabaloo here.

Irish life expectancy:
male: 75.44 years
female: 80.88 years (2008 est.)

Shouldn't they spend that 600 euros a piece to fight male diseases or general causes of death - like traffic, cigarettes, alcohol, violent crime - instead of picking something that's not a threat to the society as a whole and won't necessarily return the investement (ie. spending the money on HPV vaccinations isn't cost effective)?


Though 90 sounds like an awfully big number.

In the Netherlands it has been canceled for now, too, but that's because this vaccination and its side effects have not been properly tested on this age group. It's extremely pushed by a lobby of the vaccination's developers while experts are much more sceptical.
This is also true.

G3N13, you address that which CAN be addressed first, and work on things that aren't a matter of personal choice last.

Cancer isn't something you go out and say "Hey, let's go get a box of CANCER in my UTERUS! That's going to be FUN!"

Cancer isn't cool, cancer isn't a bad choice you made to fit in. Cancer isn't something you can kick by not doing it. It's not a matter of choice, like Crime, or Smoking, or Drugs, or rampant unprotected sex, or suicide are.

Cancer is something that Happens to you. Esp. something like Cervical Cancer, which isn't exactly something you can get by overusing an over-the-counter pleasure drug, nor is it the result of deciding to drive in the city when the bus can get you there as well.

Six hundered pounds, or six hundered thousand pounds per person isn't going to make violent crime go away, or cure addiction in immature people that leads to health problems later on, or make Alcohol go away.

Six hundered pounds per girl vaccinated has a damn good chance of making the non-elective cervical cancer go away.

Treat what you have a treatment for, work on other treatments as you go. But there's no cure for Stupidity. you can't FIX stupid, best you can manage is to change (temporarily) what form Stupid takes.

otoh, you CAN treat Cervical Cancer before it BECOMES cervical cancer. that makes it worth treating.

If you have Social Medicine, you end up with decisions like this- once it's all about the Bureaucracy, it's all about the Budget, and what gets cut is the thing that will generate enough anger to get the budget increased so it can be added back in.

Because its well known that in countries like the US without it, there are never problems with people going without it is there?

G3N13, you address that which CAN be addressed first, and work on things that aren't a matter of personal choice last.
True that.

However, the return for 9.7 million investment per annum being 90 women probably means that by spending that 9.7 million elsewhere would save more lives.

As long as people complain about taxes (;)) you have to prioritize.

It's not a matter of choice, like Crime, or Smoking, or Drugs, or rampant unprotected sex, or suicide are.

Cancer is something that Happens to you. Esp. something like Cervical Cancer, which isn't exactly something you can get by overusing an over-the-counter pleasure drug, nor is it the result of deciding to drive in the city when the bus can get you there as well.
Well, in *this* particular case abstinence or holding off sex until marriage with a partner who does the same would protect the women from HPV, which the vaccine would target. :)

Six hundered pounds, or six hundered thousand pounds per person isn't going to make violent crime go away, or cure addiction in immature people that leads to health problems later on, or make Alcohol go away.
No, but such procedures could reduce the deaths by more than 90 per annum.

Although 90 does sound quite high compared to the population... Googles a bit.

http://appliedresearch.cancer.gov/icsn/cervical/mortality.html

Hmm, the mortality rate in Ireland is 3.5 per 100,000 with incidence rate being merely double that. Interesting...

otoh, you CAN treat Cervical Cancer before it BECOMES cervical cancer. that makes it worth treating.
But with what side effects and at what percentage?

No vaccine is 100% proof and all vaccines have side effects that end up costing more.

Because its well known that in countries like the US without it, there are never problems with people going without it is there?

I didn't say that, though I'll note that a few years ago, while unemployed and without insurance, I was able to take a girl who was seriously ill to a private practice, and they treated her in spite of inability to pay. It's not the norm, but then again, people don't generally go into serious medicine looking to exploit folks, either, and it's a rare place that will turn someone who obviously needs the help away because they aren't flush-in-cash. There are a LOT of places that you can get ten million pounds in the budget-stop buying that re-do of the furniture, for instance, or maybe put off re-painting the offices. Even at an exchange of two or three to one, the dollar cost the OP described is chicken-feed in terms of Medicine, so it's a matter of political concerns rather than treatment issues or a true lack of funds.

One acceptable solution would be to offer it to every girl at the age of 11-13 and make the cost progressive dependent on the family income.

The same way other bills go in a social welfare state. :)

That way those in the lowest income percentile would pay nothing for it while those at the highest would pay nearly 100% of the cost of a mass produced vaccine.

With proper progression you could end up cutting the cost to half, if not one third, making the vaccination both cost effective and voluntary.

Albeit, I'm still concerned about the long term effects of the vaccination to human body.

Call me a one issue voter if you must, but damned if I'm voting FF after this.

Damn. I can't believe you voted for them in the first place - this underhanded stuff isn't anything new at all.

I don't get the hullabaloo here.

Irish life expectancy:
male: 75.44 years
female: 80.88 years (2008 est.)

Shouldn't they spend that 600 euros a piece to fight male diseases or general causes of death - like traffic, cigarettes, alcohol, violent crime - instead of picking something that's not a threat to the society as a whole and won't necessarily return the investement (ie. spending the money on HPV vaccinations isn't cost effective)?


Though 90 sounds like an awfully big number.


This is also true.
The government would have spent €9.7million, the people getting the vaccine would have spent the €600. And a lot of money is going into preventing those things. The tax on cigarettes and wine has gone up, Ireland has a total ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces(first country in the world to do so, btw).

Admittedly we need the money in other parts of the health service. I may have been acting a bit irrationally. If this money stays in the health dept. and goes towards getting more beds and shortening waiting lists then I'll be somewhat satiated.

One acceptable solution would be to offer it to every girl at the age of 11-13 and make the cost progressive dependent on the family income.
Someone suggested this, that free/subsidised access to the vaccine be means tested. That would be better, at least.

Damn. I can't believe you voted for them in the first place - this underhanded stuff isn't anything new at all.

Silleh Ireland.

Damn. I can't believe you voted for them in the first place.

Well a suprising number never mean to, but when hit by the thought of Fine Gael, take the lesser of two evils.