Warning Over Cancer Jab Used By Aussies

May 28, 03:40 PM

Current Headlines: By MEYLAN GREG

QUESTIONS ARE being raised about the need for New Zealand to follow Australia and introduce a cervical cancer vaccine for all 12 and 13-year-old girls.

The vaccine, Gardasil, immunises against the two main strains of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV) - responsible for 70% of cervical cancers.

About 66 women die from cervical cancer every year in New Zealand and there was a high expectation the government would fund a universal programme of Gardasil in the Budget. Instead it favoured a vaccine against childhood pneumococcal disease.

And that is a good thing, says Auckland Women's Health Council co- ordinator Lynda Williams.

"I think the government is very wise not to put it on the register just when there are a lot of unanswered questions."

Her comments follow an opinion piece in respected scientific journal Nature that questioned whether the vaccine was as wonderful as portrayed in media reports. But clinical trials have shown the vaccine to be 100% effective at protecting women not yet infected against the two most common strains of HPV.

In New Zealand, all women are offered free cervical cancer screening every three years that detects pre-cancerous cells. Theoretically, vaccinated women would need smears less often or potentially never.

At present, those wanting the vaccine must pay $450 for the three- dose course, a price doctors said appeared to have put many off.

But Williams said that before the vaccine became publicly funded, its effectiveness needed to be shown for longer than the current five years, because the cancer caused by HPV could take a decade or more to present.

She also claimed the vaccine's potential effects on 12 and 13- year-old girls were unknown as they were not included in its major trial.

Last week, the vaccine hit headlines in Australia where it is being given to all 12 and 13-year-old girls after five Melbourne schoolgirls were hospitalised after fainting immediately after immunisation.

But Dr Rachel David, public affairs director at CSL laboratories which developed the vaccine, said investigations had shown the girls' reactions were due to being injected, not the vaccine.

David said there was seven years of good data on the vaccine's effectiveness.

"On balance it's clear from the best available evidence this vaccine is a major advance against cervical cancer."

In New Zealand, Immunisation Advisory Centre communications manager Helen Petousis-Harris said Gardasil had been shown to be safe and effective in young girls and would not have been licensed otherwise.

Health Minister Pete Hodgson has indicated he wants an HPV vaccine to be funded, possibly by next year.

(c) 2007 Sunday Star - Times; Wellington, New Zealand. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.