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 That lags well behind where similar vaccines, like hepatitis B and
varicella, were at the same point in their development, the authors
write in a letter in the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
“Support for the vaccination has consistently emphasized recently
that this should be treated like any other vaccination,” Jason L.
Schwartz of Princeton University in New Jersey told Reuters Health
by phone. Schwartz coauthored the new research letter.
“We find that the public health community is not following its own
good advice, there are clear differences compared to these other
vaccines,” he said.
The first HPV vaccine was approved in 2006, and soon after the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on
Immunization practices recommended that all 11 or 12 year old boys
and girls receive the vaccine.
But eight years later, only Virginia and D.C. have any requirement
that kids be immunized, and Rhode Island has passed its own
regulation which will take effect in August.
Eight years after the CDC had issued the same recommendation for the
hepatitis B vaccine and the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine, the
hepatitis vaccine was required in 36 states and D.C., and the
varicella vaccine was required in 38 states and D.C., the
researchers point out.
The HPV vaccine protects against multiple strains of the
sexually-transmitted papillomavirus, which can cause cervical, anal,
penile and throat cancer.
According to CDC data, less than half of girls and even fewer boys
had completed the three dose series of shots in 2013.
An initial push to require the vaccine in 2006 following its
approval may have seemed premature and left a “bitter taste” for
policymakers, Schwartz said, although this new research cannot
explain why HPV vaccines have been treated differently than previous
vaccines.
A large body of evidence supports the safety and efficacy of the
vaccine, and several studies have found that getting the shots does
not lead to kids engaging in more risky sexual behavior.
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“That’s been pretty persuasively put to bed,” Schwartz said.
The HPV vaccine works extremely well, according to a CDC
spokesperson.
“Since the vaccine was first recommended in 2006, there has been a
56 percent reduction in vaccine type HPV infections among teen girls
in the U.S., even with very low HPV vaccination rates,” the
spokesperson told Reuters Health by email. “Research has also shown
that fewer teens are getting genital warts.”
“We should normalize the way we think and talk about it, and also
how we think about requirements,” Schwartz said.
Even Virginia and D.C. have very broad exemptions, so if a parent
does not want to vaccinate their child against HPV, they can still
send them to school, he noted.
“Those requirements are in name only,” he said.
Hopefully this new study will reopen the conversation about state
mandates for the HPV vaccine, he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1Oax2Fn JAMA, online July 14, 2015.
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