Irish Advocates Call For Government To Reinstate HPV Vaccination Plan

Main Category: Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Article Date: 15 Dec 2008 - 1:00 PST

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Some women's health advocates in Ireland are protesting a decision last month by Minister for Health Mary Harney to cancel the government's plan to vaccinate all 12-year-old girls against human papillomavirus, the Irish Times reports. More than 10,000 people have joined a group on the social networking Web site Facebook that calls for Harney to reinstate the program. On Wednesday, more than 100 members of the group held candlelight vigils in Dublin and Cork, Ireland, to protest the decision.

According to the Times, the HPV vaccination plan would have cost an estimated 9.7 million euro, or about $12.7 million, per year (Carroll/McDonagh, Irish Times, 12/11). When canceling the program, Harney said that the economic situation in Ireland had "rapidly and seriously" deteriorated since the plan was announced in August. About 200 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in Ireland annually, and about 70 to 80 women die of the disease each year (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 11/6).

Campaign organizer Shauneen Armstrong encouraged supporters to pressure local representatives to reverse what she called the "short-sighted and deeply flawed" decision to cancel the HPV vaccination program. James Reilly, health spokesperson for the Fine Gael party, said at the Dublin event that abandoning the HPV vaccination program did not make sense morally, economically or ethically. He added, "For the sake of a few million euro, they are sacrificing the lives of our daughters." Jan O'Sullivan, health spokesperson for the Labour Party, said that it is "incomprehensible that for such a small sum of money," the government would abandon a program that "would save at least 50 lives a year" (Irish Times, 12/11).

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