HPV vaccine abstinence debate heats up
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 | 1:13 PM ET
CBC News
The Sexual Health Centre in St. John's is weighing in on the province's new plan to vaccinate school girls against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, directly opposing a view stated by the Newfoundland Right to Life Association Wednesday.
The provincial Department of Health and Community Services announced Tuesday that it would begin a three-year program in September to vaccinate 2,800 Grade 6 girls across the province.
Brenda Kitchen is the executive director of the Sexual Health Centre, which promotes safe sex and family planning.
She is praising the government's move to provide the vaccines to schools, and criticizing the argument put forward by the Newfoundland Right to Life Association — that the vaccine will promote sexual activity unless students are taught to abstain from sex.
"I have to say that that is one of the silliest arguments I've ever heard, when it comes to the HPV vaccine," Kitchen said. "Abstinence-based programs do not work. In Texas … they have an abstinence-based program in all their schools and they also have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the States."
The human papillomavirus has been shown to increase a woman's risk of developing cancer.
The vaccine, Gardasil, is proven to prevent 70 per cent of all cervical cancers. Newfoundland and Labrador follows other Atlantic provinces, as well as B.C. and Ontario, in planning to offer the vaccination to students.
