Vaccinate girls today to save women later

Mass immunizations could prevent cervical cancer

Star Tribune Editorial

Let's say scientists finally come up with an AIDS vaccine -- but there's a catch: The vaccine works best if given in childhood, when a kid is about 11. Would you gripe if the government launched an AIDS-vaccination program?

Let's hope not. Nixing such a plan just because 11-year-olds are unlikely to be exposed to HIV would subvert wise public-health practice, which calls for protecting people from a threat before they encounter it. The fact that a particular vaccine recipient may not be exposed to the infectious agent for years -- or never -- is beside the point. Mass immunization makes sense precisely because it's impossible to identify which individuals will someday need a vaccine's protection.

That applies to pretty much every vaccine ever devised -- including a new one that can prevent cervical cancer. Just approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Gardasil creates immunity to many strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) -- the cause of genital warts and cervical cancer.

The vaccine's development is life-changing news for women, and a committee at The Centers for Disease Control has already come up with a distribution plan: Girls 11 to 12, the group said last Thursday, should be vaccinated before entering 7th grade; older girls and women up to age 26 should also be immunized.

It's a sensible plan -- one that public-health officials and private insurers should adopt straightaway. They shouldn't waste a moment listening to the few quibblers, eager to block access to the vaccine, who maintain that abstinence, not vaccination, is the proper safeguard against HPV infection. Universal vaccination of young adolescents, they argue, will spur early sexual activity.

These assertions are groundless. No credible evidence suggests that immunizing adolescents against a future health threat alters sexual behavior. And there's no question that the threat is real: Parents' wishes notwithstanding, at least 70 percent of U.S. girls have sex before age 19. That fact alone puts young women at great risk, for HPV infection is astonishingly common in this country: Among Americans of reproductive age, CDC figures show, HPV prevalence is 75 percent. Taken together, those numbers explain another sad statistic: Every year, more than 10,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer -- and more than 4,000 women die.

What argument could possibly justify forgoing a chance to reduce those numbers? Certainly not a hollow and hackneyed claim that prudent health care will nudge 11-year-olds toward early sexual activity. This new vaccine holds great hope for saving young lives. Minnesota's medical leaders should speedily put it to use.