WHY I’M WORRIED ABOUT...

VACCINE sexism. Imagine we had the ability to protect against a cancer, but offered the protection only to men not women. There would be cries of sexism.

But this is what is happening with the HPV vaccine, albeit with the sexes reversed.

The HPV virus causes cervical cancer in women as well as thousands of head and neck cancer cases in men each year — yet the vaccine is given only to teenage girls.

Now health minister Steve Brine has said arguments that it’s not cost-effective to vaccinate boys ‘do not feel right’.

I couldn’t agree more. How can anyone really defend such inequality?