Media Gearing Up for Merck's 'Gardasil for Boys' Campaign

(MoneyWatch)  BNET suggested recently that Merck's Gardasil anti-HPV vaccine had mostly tapped the sweet spot of its revenues -- preteen girls -- and was thus moving on to populations where the vaccine is much less beneficial. There is almost no point in giving the vaccine to women aged 29-45 who are already sexually active because they have already encountered the disease. Merck has nonetheless attempted to do just that.

And now there's a media drumbeat around Merck's ongoing attempt to put together an application to market Gardasil for boys. The company recently completed a study showing Gardasil was 90 percent effective against gentital warts in boys. It's been working on that study for over a year.

You're also going to see more media around different types of cancers and their locations. At Merck's bidding, the FDA recently expanded Gardasil's indications to include cancers of the vulva and vagina. And a recent study showed that HPV causes mouth and anal cancer.

It will be interesting to see if mandatory injections for boys -- you know Merck is going to push for that, right? -- will generate the same levels of hysteria that jabs for girls did.

Photo by Fickr user Ciao Chow, CC.