The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices panel voted to recommend the vaccine Gardasil -- which offers protection against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus that can lead to cervical cancer -- be given to girls from nine years of age to young women 26 years of age. The new vaccine will be included in the federal Vaccines for Children Program, making it available for all girls regardless of medical insurance coverage or the family's ability to pay the out-of-pocket expense for the cervical cancer vaccine.

Over the past few months, The Cancer Blog has covered news and commentary regarding the new cervical cancer vaccine. Here is a sampling of some of the previous posts:

• Cancer vaccine virginity and sex: a battle first for acceptance
• Women In Government applaud FDA approval of cervical cancer vaccine
• First cervical cancer vaccine approved
• Cancer vaccine facing religious Christian-right opposition
• Cervical cancer virus and vaccine for teenage girls
• Bill and Melinda Gates: cervical cancer vaccine

The beauty of blogs and small newspapers. If you want to read interesting reporting, take the road less traveled where writers are allowed to follow the compass to places large corporate media does not seem to venture.

In Daily News Central's FDA's Ok of Cervical Cancer Vaccine May Spawn Multibillion Dollar Market is an excellent piece explaining all the major participants and motives behind the recently approved cervical cancer vaccine. While no one expects that altruism is ever at play when it comes to business, understanding the reasoning behind the actions at least gives all the rest of us a chance to understand the brouhaha this particular cancer vaccine has, and will continue, to create.

While GlaxoSmithKline has a cervical cancer vaccine they hope will be approved and available next year, Merck is first out of the gate with the FDA approval of Gardasil. The company needs this to be a success after taking a financial hit a few years ago over its drug Vioxx, a pain pill that was widely-prescribed and later withdrawn from the market over safety concerns.

In the last year, Merck has quietly spent an estimated $1 million dollars launching the Tell Someone campaign and was connected to the Make the Connection campaign, both designed to raise a general public awareness and hopefully to ease the concerns of the evangelical Christian opposition they anticipated over a cancer vaccine so closely linked to sexual activity and teenage girls. The cancer vaccine works for girls who are virgins, who are not yet sexually active. You can see the potential for religious opposition considering their only stand on prevention in general when it comes to sex is to instruct teens not to have sex.

On June 29, immunization experts at the CDC will hold a meeting to decide if the new cervical cancer vaccine should be added to a list of mandatory vaccines administered to the youth in this country. Congress will have a vote on adding the cancer vaccine to immunization programs, and the health officials in each state will decide if the new vaccine will be required. The battle over a sexually-transmitted cancer and cancer prevention for virgins has just begun.