Gardasil: the cancer vaccine protects against cervical cancer
According to the F.D.A., Gardasil is a safe and effective drug that proved effective 100 per cent of the time against its target strains. But while the drug has been in the works for almost 15 years — it appears to have originated in an Australian lab — it really only underwent formal testing over the past four years.
No one really knows its long-term effects or whether subjects will have to undergo booster shots at some future date. The testing was carried out on more than 27,000 young men and women but only 250 of these subjects were as young as nine.
Still, Gardasil is clearly part of the new frontier of cancer meds. It is the second of only two so-called cancer vaccines to have been approved in the U.S. though at least 14 others are in final, stage 3 trials. The first to be approved was a vaccine against hepatitis B, which is now part of an immunization program being used in all provinces, and which is said to guard against an infection that can sometimes lead to liver cancer.
Both it and Gardasil are considered prophylactic vaccines because they do not target cancers directly but the viruses that can lead to the disease.
Source: cbc.ca
So, technically they’re anti-viral drugs, not anti-cancer, since infection with HepB and papilloma viruses doesn’t always lead to cancer. Nevertheless, the vaccines are wonderful to have. I wonder which components of the virus and/or immune system Gardasil is targeting at… 
HepB vaccines basically contain viral antigen without viral DNA, thereby boosting the host immune system upon exposure to the antigen without any active virus in the body.
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gabe said,
February 13, 2008
thanks for the info im doing an assignment on it! valentines day tomorrow