HPV Sharply Reduced in Teenage Girls Following Vaccine, Study Says …The vaccine for human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer, has proved effective, but immunization rates remain low … A vaccine introduced a decade ago to combat the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer has already reduced the virus's prevalence in teenage girls by almost two-thirds, federal researchers said Monday. – New York Times

The vaccine debate continues. As we can see above, the mainstream media energetically reports on positive studies with alacrity. But the negatives are growing too.

At stake is a portion of the credibility and viability of the pharmaceutical industry and its supporting facilities including various government agencies along with Wall Street participants and shareholders.

Vaccines may not provide Big Pharma with most of its profits, but they do offer it tremendous, positive PR. Vaccines give the pharmaceutical industry, in concert with government, enormous, almost unparalleled reach and power over people's bodies.

The larger industry itself is one of the most profitable on earth. In the US alone, the pharmaceuticals market generates something like $300 billion a year and is concentrated among approximately ten companies with profit margins in the area of 30 percent.

But the industry remains under attack on a number of fronts – over generic drugs, patents, mood-disorder remedies and various drugs such as anti-psychotics. The vaccine controversy is certainly one of the most high-profile trouble spots.

Big Pharma just lost an ally on the Supreme Court. In 2011, recently departed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote the majority opinion supporting the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

Under the Act, pharmaceutical companies are exempt from lawsuits involving vaccine injury. Instead, a federal court hears the cases and decides on the damages.

Arguments over vaccines are in a sense arguments over the future of medicine itself and the participants that will profit from it and control it.