Health & Fitness

ON THE COVER

Cancer Fighter

Doctor with. Detroit roots leads team
that created cervical cancer vaccine.

a girl or young woman from contracting
infections that cause 70 percent of cervical
cancers and 90 percent of genital warts "is
a wonderful feeling."

Judith Doner Berne
Special to the Jewish News

A

standing ovation from hundreds
of his colleagues
b
greeted former
Detroiter Dr. Eliav Barr when
he took the podium to introduce a new
vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. They
recognized that through his leadership,
cervical cancer should no longer be the
second-leading cause of cancer death in
women across the world.
Each year, cervical cancer affects an
estimated 500,000 women, of whom about
240,000 die.
The vaccine, Gardasil, is the first and
only vaccine to protect against HPV
(human papillomavirus), some forms
of which cause genital warts and cervi-
cal cancer. Introduced by Merck & Co., it
was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in June for use in
girls and women ages 9 to 26.
"When he [Eliav] was introduced, the
house rose up in a spontaneous stand-
ing ovation that went on and on and on,"
Merck Vice President Keith Gottesdiener
wrote Dr. Barr's parents, Dr. Isaac and
Miriam Barr of Bloomfield Hills. "In my
many years at Merck, I've never seen any-
thing quite like it!"
"After all the years, I was so proud,"

Eliav Barr said, in a telephone interview
from his post as executive director and
HPV program head at Merck Research
Laboratories in Philadelphia.
Gardasil is the culmination of a nearly

New Frontier
"This vaccine opens a new era in can-
cer prevention," said National Cancer
Institute (NCI) Acting Director Dr. John
E. Niederhuber."It has the potential to
save women's lives as well as to reduce
health disparities in the United States and
around the world."
The basic research,
Dr. Eliav Barr
which took place at NCI
isn't holed up
and the University of
in a single lab-
Queensland in Australia,
oratory. He led
showed that cervical
eight years of
cancer only developed in
clinical stud-
women who have contract-
ies around the
ed HPV and that through
world to come
manipulation of genetic
up with the
materials, a vaccine could
first vaccine to
be created to protect the
prevent cervi-
body against infection.
cal cancer.
"I had to look up HPV
in my dictionary," Barr, a
cardiologist by training, recalled when he
two-decade scientific effort, the last eight
was tapped to run the testing.
years of which Barr led. "There's a lot
"I led the team through the develop-
of very unglamorous stuff" involved in
ment process to find out whether it was
research, he said.
safe," he said. "I started to design larger
So to come up with a vaccine to prevent

Cancer Fighter on page 28

No On School Inoculations

Michigan lost a chance to become the first state to add the HPV vaccine to
its list of inoculations for sixth-grade girls when the State House rejected
Senate Bill 1416 in the final hours of its 2006 session on Dec.14.
The FDA-approved vaccine, marketed as Gardasil, is recommended for 11-
and 12-year-old girls by the American Committee on Immunization Practices.
The vaccine works best when given before a person is sexually active, accord-
ing to its manufacturer.
The bill, passed by the Senate, would have given the child's parent, guardian
or person in loco parentis the ability to reject the vaccination for their child
after receiving information on the connection between HPV and cervical can-
cer identified by the Michigan Department of Community Health.
It's unclear whether the measure will be reintroduced in 2007. The bill's
sponsor, Sen. Beverly Hammerstrom, R-Temperance, is term-limited and won't
return to the State Senate. But Sen. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, was a
co-sponsor of the bill and was just re-elected.

HPV Vaccine Facts:

• What: Gardasil combats cancer and
genital warts by preventing infection
from the human papillomavirus (HPV).

• Who: It has been approved for girls
and women ages 9-26.

• How: Three shots over six months at
a cost of $360. Health insurers covering
about 94 percent of privately insured
people have committed to reimburs-
ing Gardasil. The Vaccines for Children
program has committed to cover the
uninsured from age 9-18. Merck offers
an assistance program to aid eligible

recipients 19 and older.

• Why: Cervical cancer is the second
most common cause of cancer death in
women worldwide, resulting in nearly
500,000 diagnoses and 240,000
deaths each year. About 1 million cases
of genital warts occur each year in the
U.S. and 32 million worldwide.

• Where: Forty cuntries have approved
the vaccine so far. Merck is work-
ing with agencies such as the Gates
Foundation to develop HPV vaccination
programs in impoverished nations.

- Data provided try Merck & Co., Inc.

December 28 2006

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