Poor States and HPV Vaccinations

Poorer girls not getting HPV vaccine for cervical cancer, By Liz Szabo, March 18, 2010, USA Today: “A cervical cancer vaccine is not getting to many of the girls who need it the most, a new study shows. Mississippi and Arkansas, two of the nation’s poorest states, also have the highest death rates from cervical cancer – a result of poor access to basic screenings and health care for a large number of women, says Peter Bach of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Yet in Mississippi, where the vaccine could perhaps save the greatest number of lives, only 16% of teen girls in 2008 received the shot, called Gardasil, according to Bach’s paper in Saturday’s The Lancet. About 22% of Arkansas girls ages 13 to 17 got the vaccine, which costs $390 for three shots…”