When Merck launched a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign last year to promote Gardasil, its new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, company officials probably did not anticipate that its signature phrase — “one less” — would apply not just to malignancies but also to physicians. Yet that slogan has come to symbolize the response of doctors.
How much is this vaccine worth to you?
The HPV vaccine, Gardasil, helps prevent cervical cancer. But it costs at least $360 — three doses for $120 apiece. Everyone is feeling the pain: doctors, insurers and patients. All of this is sticking everybody in a sensitive place — the wallet.
Saturday, June 2, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CDT;
updated 2:26 p.m. CDT, Monday, July 21, 2008
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