MPs from every party back MoS to demand: Give boys the HPV jab
MPs from every political party are lining up to support The Mail on Sunday’s campaign to vaccinate teenage boys against the cancercausing virus HPV.
Parliament will this week debate the issue for the first time, heaping pressure on ministers to change NHS policy.
At the moment only girls get the jab to protect against the human papilloma virus, the main cause of cervical cancer.
But it also causes thousands of cases of other cancers every year among men, often decades after they were infected. Incidents of HPV-related cancers are rising rapidly.
The virus is spread by sexual contact and kissing, while treatment requires weeks of expensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with life-changing side effects.
The Commons debate, set to be held at Westminster Hall on Wednesday, has been triggered by an urgent request to the Speaker by senior Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale.
‘The case for boys to be vaccinated is every bit as strong as it is for girls,’ he said yesterday.
‘If we don’t do something now, there will be an exponential growth in these diseases. It costs a huge amount to treat them, and their social costs are vast. Vaccinating boys is a crucial investment in the nation’s future health.’
The Scottish Government follows the same advice on the issue as the UK Government, so any change at Westminster would probably lead to a rethink north of the Border.
Ending the UK ‘vaccine apartheid’ would cost £22million a year. But until now, the NHS’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the independent expert advisory committee that advises all UK health departments, has argued this would not be ‘cost-effective’.
The committee claims it would be cheaper to treat the cancers – which can affect areas such as the neck and throat – caused by HPV.
Key figures from every party now back this newspaper’s call for the policy change. Shadow health minister Sharon Hodgson said: ‘HPV is not gender-specific, so immunisation should not be gender-specific.’ Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘The dramatic rise in HPV-related cancers makes this very urgent. It is impossible to justify vaccinating girls but not boys, and I very much welcome The Mail on Sunday’s campaign.’
Many SNP, Democratic Unionist and Plaid Cymru MPs also support the change. West Dunbartonshire Nationalist MP Martin Docherty-Hughes said the Government must listen to ‘the evidence of clinicians on the front line’.
John Baron, Tory chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, said: ‘Given the benefits to public health, and the cost savings to the NHS, I hope the JCVI will now make the right decision.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Scottish vaccination policy is based on advice from the JCVI. It keeps vaccination recommendations under review, including in relation to HPV vaccination of boys, and we will consider any recommendations from the JCVI when it provides them.’