Twenty-six states have considered legislation that would make it mandatory for girls as young as 11 to receive a controversial vaccine to protect them from a sexually transmitted disease, an idea that alarms a researcher who spent two decades developing the drug.
Dr. Diane Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Center at Dartmouth Medical School, said her trials of the vaccine, marketed by Merck under the name Gardasil, involved girls 15 to 25. In her own practice, she does not recommend the shot until a girl is 18.
“This vaccine should not be mandated for 11-year-old girls,” Harper said. “It’s not been tested in little girls for efficacy.”
Gardasil protects women against several forms of human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection. Seventy percent of cervical cancer cases result from HPV infection.
Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said governments should not be forcing young girls to take part in this “public-health experiment.”
“This is by far the fastest move towards mandating a vaccine that we’ve ever had, and there’s no reason to do that,” she explaiend. “We need to see over time how effective it is, if booster shots are needed, what kind of side-effects we will see in a large population—so it could actually be detrimental to rush it.”
While vaccines such as Gardasil may play an important role in protecting women’s health, Klepacki said, the best health practice for young girls is abstinence until marriage and fidelity within marriage.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Focus on the Family’s statement on the HPV vaccine is available here.
