Do you think girls should be required to have the new cervical cancer vaccine?

Answer 1

I don't know if it should be required, but it certainly should be highly recommended. All it takes is one encounter with someone carrying the HPV virus and bam, you could be infected.

Answer 2

I don't know about required; however, it should be offered when girls get their school inoculations. I know too many girls my age who are being diagnosed with cervical cancer. It is scary and I am sure if the shot was offered a few years ago they wouldn't be in this situation.
The only issue is that it is for young girls and women up to 26 years old. The best time to get the shot is when you are 10,11,12, or 13. The problem is that parents don't want to face the facts and provide the shot to their children.
I think parents need to be better educated.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit that cervical cancer is becoming a serious problem, Yes it should be required. Though, I don't know much about the shot and how many times you have to go to get a check up and stuff for it... it's better to be safe then sorry and the number of people who are getting cervical cancer are definitely increasing so that kind of worries me.

Answer 4

Two years after the first of three doses, antibodies against the two most common cervical cancer-causing virus types, induced by a vaccine, have been found where they are needed, in the cervix, according to new data presented at the International Papillomavirus Conference (IPC) in Beijing.1

GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) cervical cancer vaccine CervarixTM has been shown to induce antibodies against the two most common cancer-causing virus types, 16 and 18, which were detectable in the cervix, where the virus infects and replicates. High correlation between the levels of antibodies in the bloodstream and in the cervix were observed up to two years after the first of three doses of the vaccine, in women 15-55 years of age.1

"The human papillomavirus types that cause cervical cancer are particularly challenging - the virus can evade the immune system by replicating only in the cervix. This study shows that the vaccine is able to induce antibodies in the blood that can reach the cervix, where the virus infects and develops into cervical cancer and where protection is mostly needed" comments Professor Tino Schwarz, Head of the Central Laboratory at the Stiftung Juliusspital, Academic Teaching Hospital of the University of Wuerzburg, Germany.

"The high correlation between antibodies induced by CervarixTM in the bloodstream and those able to reach the cervix provides further insights on the quality of the immune response induced by the vaccine, and also on how the vaccine may help provide protection against cancer-causing virus types," explains Dr Hugues Bogaerts, MD ,Vice President of Worldwide Medical Affairs HPV at GSK Biologicals.

"We expect this correlation to remain high in time, as we know the observation of cervical antibodies was made at 24 months, which is the time when levels of vaccine-induced antibodies in the bloodstream become stable and are maintained for at least five years, according to data from existing trials on our cervical cancer vaccine" concludes Dr Bogaerts.

CervarixTM is formulated with a novel adjuvant technology, the adjuvant system AS04, specifically designed and selected to enhance the immune response against the human papillomavirus responsible for cervical cancer.

Answer 5

They shouldn't be required but I got the vaccine. I'd recommend it- one of my friends got cervical cancer at 20 and theres a history of cancer in my family.

Answer 6

I don't think any vaccines should be required. Save the mandatory medicine for facist countries.

EDIT: I'm thinking about my son who, in order to attend public school, is required to have certain vaccines which contain Thimerisol; a preservative that has a questionable link to the Autism spectrum disorders, which we are already afraid he might have.
Granted, thimerisol might not be in the vaccine that is used to prevent cervical cancer, and it may not cause autism, but if the vaccine is mandatory and when the question comes up 5 or 10 years from now "is the cervical cancer vaccine causing XXX disorder?," it will still be mandatory, but how comfortable would you feel about taking it? How comfortable would you feel about letting your daughter take it?

Answer 7

I don't necessarily think that disease control is a "totalitarian" or "facist" idea. Sure - I am wary of pharmaceutical lobbying, but in this case some action needs to be taken without weighing too far into the "moral" aspect. In fact, I think public health and prevention of this disease is what fundamentally matters. TOO many women are dying from this each year -- and it's not just sexually active women! I think people need to leave all MORAL arguments out of this. The public health sector has a responsibility to respond to modern-day epidemics the same way they required vaccinations for other diseases of the past -- smallpox, polio, mumps-- and have almost wiped them out in the process.

Answer 8

no no no a thousand times no. you just know maybe 5-10-15 years down the road it will show that it causes cervical cancer. Leave people alone with there sex lives. Education not vacination

Answer 9

Here in Australia, every school-aged girl was given the vaccine for free should she choose to have it (which almost everyone did).

Answer 10

No! Absolutely not. This is supposed to be a country of freedom!! Women should have the right to choose to have the vaccine but should never be forced to!