The BMA recently submitted a public letter to Anna Soubry, Minister for Health. The letter cited the great success of a cross-gender vaccination programme running in Australia since 2004. They stated that they were not pushing for the introduction of the full model, but felt strongly that provisions should be made for boys. Making the HPV vaccination available to gay men upon request is said to be more economically viable than offering it to the general male population, while cutting down the incidences of both anal warts and cancer.
The BMA’s request is reasonably phrased, and so seems likely to become policy. There will be some specialists, however, who feel such an economically conditioned health decision is insufficient. Many specialists disputed the original decision to confine the HPV vaccination to girls at the time of its introduction in 2008. They thought that extending it to boys would reduce the overall presence of the infection in the population, leading to a significant long-term reduction in these diseases. The wellness benefits of such a programme could be truly life-changing for thousands of young people who needlessly suffer with sexually transmitted disease and could even mean a serious drop in lifelong cancer rates. Let’s hope that ‘economic considerations’ take a backseat, and that the wellbeing of our youth forms the focal point of Ms. Soubry’s assessment of this issue.