Teenagers May Be the Next Target Market for Vaccine Makers
The New York Times today examines the "future of vaccines," in which a wide range of vaccines against diseases transmitted through sex, drug use or close living quarters may be targeted to teenagers. Dr. Stanley Plotkin, inventor of the rubella vaccine, predicted in the Jordan Report, the NIH's annual survey of vaccine development, that vaccines for herpes in teen girls, papillomaviruses, cytomegalovirus, meningococcal B infections, adolescent whooping cough, flu, shingles and AIDS may become available by 2012. About six of those vaccines are now in the development process, the Times reports. Such vaccines might "offer new ways to fight incurable illnesses" if they are administered before infection, but vaccines are expensive, and insurance protocols have not yet been set for covering teens, the Times reports (McNeil, New York Times, 7/1).
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