MPs and peers call on minister to end HPV vaccine apartheid

THE Minister in charge of vaccine policy has been urged by MPs and peers to start immunising boys as well as girls against the cancer-causing Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

In a boost to The Mail on Sunday’s End The Vaccine Apartheid campaign, members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer have written to minister Steve Brine calling for an end to the current imbalance.

In a separate move Mr Brine’s Labour shadow, Sharon Hodgson, said she welcomed the Government’s recent decision to vaccinate gay and bisexual men.

But she added the extension must go further to include all adolescent boys. As The Mail on Sunday has revealed, HPV, spread by sexual contact and kissing, causes thousands of devastating cancers every year, many in the head and neck – which in men is the fourth most common type. But although girls aged 12 and 13 have been vaccinated on the NHS since 2008, vaccinating boys is not considered ‘cost-effective’.

The letter to Mr Brine is signed by group chairman John Baron, a Conservative MP, and vice chairmen Baroness Morgan of Drefelin and Baroness Masham of Ilton, who are both crossbench peers. It says the NHS computer model used to determine whether gender-neutral vaccination is cost-effective works from ‘very low estimates’ of the proportion of cancers caused by HPV, and ignores projections of their future increase – set to more than double by the 2020s.

It adds: ‘Vaccinating only girls is discriminatory against boys – and indeed girls themselves, because it implies they alone are responsible for transmitting HPV, and must bear the burden of the immunisation process.’

The Health Department said it was currently reviewing whether to extend the HPV vaccination to boys.