AppId is over the quota
Gardasil, a Human Papillomavirus vaccine, is displayed at the Girls to Women Health and Wellness clinic in Dallas, Texas March 6, 2007.
Credit: Reuters/Jessica RinaldiBy Julie SteenhuysenCHICAGO | Tue Oct 25, 2011 5:43pm EDT
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boys should be routinely vaccinated against the human papillomavirus or HPV in an effort to protect them from oral, anal and penile cancers, and to extend protection of girls from cervical cancer, U.S. vaccine advisers said on Tuesday.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voted unanimously to recommend routine use of Merck & Co's Gardasil in 11- and 12-year-old boys to fight the sexually transmitted virus, with 13 yes votes and one abstention.
Previously, the CDC had said doctors are free to use the vaccine in boys but had stopped short of recommending routine vaccination.
Boys aged 13-21 who have not been vaccinated should be given a catch-up dose of the vaccine, which is given in a three-dose series. Men aged 22 through 26 may be vaccinated but the vaccine is not recommended for routine use, the panel said.
Currently, the CDC recommends HPV vaccinations made by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline for girls and women between the ages of 11 and 26.
The prior recommendations were based largely on evidence that the vaccine protects boys from genital warts but the new recommendations reflect several studies showing the vaccine helps prevent cancers in boys as well, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a conference call with reporters.
The HPV vaccine offers an opportunity to decrease the burden of HPV in both males and females, Schuchat said.
"In addition to providing a direct benefit to boys, there is also the potential that the vaccine will reduce the spread of HPV from males to females," she said.
Schuchat noted that the HPV vaccine currently is not being as widely used among girls as hoped and vaccinating boys could help reduce transmission of HPV to girls.
POLITICAL CONTROVERSY
During the meeting, CDC experts advised the panel there is no evidence the vaccine can cause "mental retardation," a concern raised by Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann in a Republican presidential candidate debate.
The U.S. medical community repudiated Bachmann's claim, which she made as a swipe at a rival, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who issued an executive order in 2007 mandating girls get the HPV vaccine as part of a school immunization program.
Perry's order was later overturned.
The committee's strong recommendations, which are subject to CDC approval, likely will mean insurance companies will begin paying for the vaccine when used in boys.
"Today's ACIP recommendations will help to provide greater access to Gardasil for males," said Dr. Mark Feinberg, chief public health and science officer, Merck Vaccines.
Insurance companies have largely considered the CDC's prior policy recommendation for boys as optional and some have refused to cover the shots for boys.
"I think it's a worthwhile vaccine," said Dr. Jay Siwek, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, who was not part of the panel.
Siwek said the only downside of the vaccine is cost, which is $360 for a course of three shots.
In his own practice, Siwek tells parents the vaccine protects against cancers that occur in boys -- mostly mouth and throat -- and it helps protect girls from cancer as well.
Dr. Robert Haddad of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said there has been a epidemic of HPV-related head and neck cancers.
"HPV is a cause of many cancers so it is really important to support endeavors to vaccinate," he said.
The approval, which only applies to Merck's vaccine, may bolster sales of Gardasil, which have stalled amid competition from a rival GlaxoSmithKline product and because many younger women already have been immunized with Gardasil, limiting the market size.
Gardasil's sales hit $1.1 billion worldwide in 2009 and have been hovering in that range.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Editing by Sandra Maler and Bill Trott)
CHICAGO (AP) — By age 6, children should have vaccinations against 14 diseases, in at least two dozen separate doses, the U.S. government advises. More than 1 in 10 parents reject that, refusing some shots or delaying others mainly because of safety concerns, a national survey found.Worries about vaccine safety were common even among parents whose kids were fully vaccinated: 1 in 5 among that group said they think delaying shots is safer than the recommended schedule. The results suggest that more than 2 million infants and young children may not be fully protected against preventable diseases, including some that can be deadly or disabling.The nationally representative online survey of roughly 750 parents of kids age 6 and younger was done last year and results were released online Monday in the journal Pediatrics. They are in line with a larger federal survey released last month, showing that at least 1 in 10 toddlers and preschoolers lagged on vaccines that included chickenpox and the measles-mumps-rubella combination shots. That survey, also for 2010, included more than 17,000 households.The Pediatrics survey follows other recent news raising concerns among infectious disease specialists, including a study showing the whooping cough vaccine seems to lose much of its effectiveness after just three years — faster than doctors have thought — perhaps contributing to recent major outbreaks, most notably in California. Also, data reported in September show that a record number of kindergartners' parents in California last year used a personal belief exemption to avoid vaccination requirements.Kandace O'Neill is a Lakeville, Minn., mom whose views are shared by many parents who don't follow federal vaccine advice. Her 5-year-old son has had no vaccinations since he turned 1, and her 7-month-old daughter has received none of the recommended shots."I have to make sure that my child is healthy, and I do not want to put medications in my child that I think are going to harm them," said O'Neill, who was not involved in the survey appearing in Pediatrics.O'Neill said she's not an extreme anti-vaccine zealot. She just thinks that parents — not doctors or schools — should make medical decisions for their children.Study author Dr. Amanda Dempsey, a pediatrician and researcher at the University of Michigan, said vaccine skepticism is fueled by erroneous information online and media reports that sensationalize misconceptions. These include the persistent belief among some parents about an autism-vaccine link despite scientific evidence to the contrary and the debunking of one of the most publicized studies that first fueled vaccine fears years ago.Some parents also dismiss the severity of vaccine-preventable diseases because they've never seen a child seriously ill with those illnesses.But vaccine-preventable diseases including flu and whooping cough can be deadly, especially in infants, said Dr. Buddy Creech, associate director of Vanderbilt University's Vaccine Research Program. Creech has two school-aged children who are fully vaccinated and a newborn he said will be given all the recommended vaccinations."From being someone in the trenches seeing children die every year from influenza and its complications ... I would not do a single thing to risk the health of my kids," he said. Creech has served on advisory boards for vaccine makers and has accepted their research money.Dempsey, the survey's lead author, has been a paid adviser to Merck on issues regarding a vaccine for older children but said that company made no contributions to the survey research.Knowledge Networks conducted the survey, which had an error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points.Dr. Larry Pickering, an infectious disease specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the new survey is important and well done, and indicates that doctors need to do a better job of communicating vaccine information to patients.Pickering said he supports the idea of parents being actively involved in medical care for their children, but cautioned: "If they're going to do that, they need to be fully informed about the risks and benefits of vaccines and need to obtain the information from a valid source."The CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians are among groups that provide online vaccine information based on medical research.___Online:American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.orgCDC: http://www.cdc.govAmerican Academy of Family Physicians: http://www.aafp.org___AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTannerAssociated Press 
