Merck & Co. has been marketing Gardasil to older women, even though It is unclear how much older women would benefit from the vaccine.
In August, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine questioned the cost effectiveness of such an approach. A treatment is typically considered cost effective if it costs health systems less than $50,000 or $100,000 for one additional year of life. The analysis, conducted by Harvard researchers, predicted that it would cost $43,600 to extend life expectancy by one year when girls are vaccinated at 12. But when girls up to age 18 are included in the analysis, that ratio rises to $97,300 and to $153,000 through age 26.
The American Cancer Society is on record as recommending that Gardasil vaccination efforts focus on younger girls. “The push needs to be with the 11- to 12-year-olds,” Debbie Saslow, director of breast and cervical cancer for the American Cancer Society, told Bloomberg.com. “It is not going to be as effective in the older women.”