Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report Highlights Editorials, Opinion Pieces On HPV Vaccine

Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology;  Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Article Date: 10 Jul 2006 - 6:00 PST

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CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which drafts recommendations and schedules for the administration of vaccines in the U.S., last week unanimously voted to recommend that all girls ages 11 and 12 receive Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil. FDA last month approved Gardasil -- which is given in three injections over six months and will cost $360 -- for sale and marketing to girls and women ages nine to 26. According to Merck, Gardasil in clinical trials has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection in women who do not already have HPV with strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases, and about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which together with strains 16 and 18 cause about 90% of genital wart cases. Gardasil also protects against vaginal and vulvar cancers, two other gynecological cancers that are linked to HPV, according to a study presented in Atlanta at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The ACIP recommendation also allows for girls as young as nine to receive the vaccine and recommends that girls and women ages 13 to 26 receive Gardasil. Although the vaccination should be given before a girl begins sexual activity, sexually active girls and women still should receive Gardasil, the recommendation says (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 6/30). Several newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces related to Gardasil. Some of these are summarized below.

Editorials

• Chicago Sun-Times: "The religious right is worried" that Gardasil "will lead to promiscuity and other societal ills," but ACIP "reasonably ignored all this nonsense and rightly" recommended that all girls ages 11 and 12 receive the vaccine, a Sun-Times editorial says. The HPV vaccine is not going to make girls more promiscuous, despite the fears of some conservatives, the editorial adds, concluding, "What it will do is save girls and women from dying" (Chicago Sun-Times, 7/3).



• Chicago Tribune: Gardisil is a "formidable weapon" against cervical cancer, and discussion about its use should not "become tangled in the incendiary debate over abstinence and sex education," a Tribune editorial says. Although it is "too early to say the new vaccine should be added to the mandatory list for Illinois schoolchildren," the debate should be limited to Gardasil's "safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness," the editorial concludes (Chicago Tribune, 7/4).
  


• Minneapolis Star Tribune: ACIP's recommendation to vaccinate U.S. girls ages 11 and 12 against HPV is a "sensible plan" and "one that public health officials and private insurers should adopt straightaway," a Star Tribune editorial says. "This new vaccine holds great hope for saving young lives. Minnesota's medical leaders should speedily put it to use," the editorial concludes (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 7/4).
  


• San Diego Union-Tribune: "We can lament unto eternity" that efforts to prevent and treat sexually transmitted infections have to begin early, but "if lament is all we do, the consequences will be deadly for thousands of women who contract" HPV and develop cervical cancer, a Union-Tribune editorial says. Because ACIP recommends that girls be vaccinated between ages 11 and 12, making Gardasil mandatory for schoolchildren is the "best way to ensure that those who most need it get it," the editorial says. The editorial concludes, "The best policy for California will at the least" require children to be vaccinated "unless their parents specifically opt them out" (San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/3).
  


• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Now that ACIP has recommended the routine use of Gardasil among girls ages 11 and 12, the "next step is to put it to work quickly to safeguard a new generation," a Post-Intelligencer editorial says. Although the question of whether the vaccine should be mandated in schools can be debated "another day," health officials and insurance companies need to "move as quickly as possible to reduce girls' risk" of developing cervical cancer, according to the editorial (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/3).

Opinion Pieces

• Alice Dreger, Chicago Tribune: Although "I don't have cervical cancer -- yet. What I have are strains" of HPV and an "enormous sense of relief that, in spite of some opposition," ACIP has voted to recommend that girls and women ages 11 to 26 routinely be vaccinated against the virus, Alice Dreger, an associate professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, writes in a Tribune opinion piece. Dreger writes, "Your sexual politics should not determine whether women like me have to live with or die of HPV." She adds that vaccinating all girls -- despite some people's "naive notion" that this might make them choose not to abstain from sex -- is the only way to prevent women from having to go through what she has been through, including the fear of developing cervical cancer (Dreger, Chicago Tribune, 7/5).
  


• Amanda Schaffer, Slate: A study published in the June 22 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that shows that consistent use of condoms protects against HPV "is good news for women" and "a problem for some social conservatives who have relied on uncertainty about HPV and condoms" to endorse abstinence as the only "responsible way to prevent" STIs, Slate contributor Schaffer writes in an opinion piece. The study "strikes the most serious blow yet to the use of HPV in the abstinence campaign against condoms," and now that ACIP has recommended HPV vaccinations for all girls ages 11 and 12, "fear-mongering about HPV increasingly looks like a losing approach," Schaffer says. Conservatives now must "decide whether to launch campaigns that aim to prevent states from making it mandatory," she writes, concluding that while some conservative leaders might "insist on doing so. But as the smart ones should now realize, the HPV playbook is pretty much played out" (Schaffer, Slate, 7/3).
  


• Linda Klepacki, Washington Times: Conservative groups such as Focus on the Family "celebrate" the development of HPV vaccines and "support their universal availability," but they "also stand for the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children," Klepacki, a sexual health analyst for Focus on the Family, writes in a Times letter to the editor. Only parents should be able to make medical decisions such as whether to vaccinate "America's kids," Klepacki says (Klepacki, Washington Times, 7/2).

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