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ATLANTA -- Preteen girls should be given a new vaccine to prevent the most common cause of cervical cancer, a panel of experts said here Thursday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises CDC on vaccine policy, voted unanimously to recommend that all 11- and 12-year-old girls be immunized to prevent infection with human papillomavirus (HPV).
The committee said the vaccine series can be given to girls as young as 9, at the doctor's discretion.
"We're trying to provide the vaccine to girls before the onset of sexual activity," said Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She called the recommendation a "huge breakthrough for women's health and cancer prevention."
The ACIP designated it for 11- to 12-year-olds to coincide with other vaccines given at that age, but also called for immunization for girls and women 13 to 26.
The recommendations could set off fights with conservative groups fearful that states might require the vaccine for school admission. The topic never came up among committee members, but a statement issued Thursday by Focus on the Family's Linda Klepacki said if states require immunization for students then, "state officials, not parents, would become the primary sexual-health decision makers for America's children."
William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, a liaison to the ACIP for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said, "I don't know of any state considering (requiring) it at this time." He said decisions on school requirements are made by state health departments.
The vaccine, Merck's Gardasil, won approval by the Food and Drug Administration on June 8 and is licensed for girls and women 9 to 26. It is given in three doses over six months, at a relatively expensive cost of $120 a dose.
It is likely to be covered by insurance, Schuchat said, and will be added to a list of vaccines provided at government expense to uninsured or underinsured children in the Vaccines for Children program.
Getting preteens into a doctor's office three times in six months may be a challenge, but it's doable, says adolescent medicine specialist Amy Middleman of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. "It is not always easy, but we think this vaccine is so exciting that it will draw teenagers in," and lead to discussions about risk-prevention.
The vaccine targets four types of HPV that cause 70% of cervical cancer and 90% of genital warts. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the USA, infecting 6.2 million each year, says the CDC. Most women clear the infection on their own, but some types of HPV can cause abnormalities in cells that become cancerous years later.
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