HPV Vaccines Not Reaching Needy

Girls from states where cervical cancer mortality is high have relatively poor uptake of a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), says a new study. Virtually all cervical cancer is caused by HPV.

Mississippi and Arkansas have the highest death rates from cervical cancer, due in part to inadequate access to health care and basic cervical cancer screenings, said lead study author Peter Bach of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. However, Gardasil HPV vaccine uptake among Mississippi females ages 13-17 was just 16 percent in 2008, the study found. Among Arkansas females of the same age, the HPV vaccination rate was about 22 percent.

In relatively affluent Rhode Island, cervical cancer mortality is 50 percent lower. Among female peers ages 13-17 in Rhode Island, 55 percent received Gardasil.

The lower vaccination rate in poor states represents "a failure," said Bach.

Merck & Co.'s Gardasil vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006. GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix HPV vaccine gained U.S. approval last year.

Low-income girls can obtain the three-shot HPV series through the federal Vaccines for Children program, said Lance Rodewald of CDC. The program has helped boost uptake of at least the first HPV shot to 46 percent of girls from families living below the poverty level, compared with 36 percent for girls from families living above the poverty line.

The full report, "Gardasil: From Bench, to Bedside, to Blunder," was published in The Lancet (2010;375(9719):963-964).

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