This week you have been reading many perspectives on “what will it take to end cervical cancer?” as part of NLIRH’s blog carnival, ¡Acábalo Ya! Working Together to End Cervical Cancer.
All of us here at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) emphasize the importance of monitoring cervical cancer incidence rates because they serve as indicators of a community’s access to preventive health care services.
Why is this? Because no woman should be diagnosed, let alone die, of cervical cancer. For the first time, we have a comprehensive set of tools to prevent and fight the disease. Cervical cancer is highly preventable with regular Pap tests, the HPV test, and a provider’s monitoring and treatment of precancerous changes to the cells of a cervix. The HPV vaccines (both Gardasil® and Cervarix®) are also effective tools in the prevention of cervical cancer. Furthermore, the disease is also highly treatable when detected early.
Yet Latinas continue to have the highest incidence of cervical cancer among women of all ethnic/racial groups and the second highest mortality rate after African American women. In certain states, particularly along the southern border, Latinas have the highest incidence and mortality rates.
NLIRH recognizes and raises awareness of the myriad barriers Latinas face to preventing cervical cancer: lack of health insurance, stigmas around STIs and sexual health, cultural and linguistic barriers with health care systems and providers, the high cost of health care, fear associated to immigration status, racism and xenophobia.
Thus, while we serve to educate Latinas about the importance of gynecological health and demystify sexual health issues, we also will work year-round to bring down the barriers Latinas face in accessing health care.
This year, we will work to increase federal funding for Title X, the only federally funded family planning program, that provides cervical cancer screening and STI counseling to low-income women. We urge the federal government to support other programs that positively impact Latina health including Medicaid, Community Health Center grants, funding for immunizations and school-based health programs. We will continue to advocate for access to health care for immigrants, for instance by urging Congress to lift the five-year ban for qualified legal immigrants from accessing means-tested benefits under Medicaid.
In 2012, there will be many opportunities to reduce health disparities and increase Latinas’ access to health services. Beyond January, we hope that our elected officials will not only speak about cervical cancer awareness, but work work us to ensure Latinas live cervical-cancer free.
For more information, please visit NLIRH’s resources on cervical cancer.
While I agree that Cervical Cancer is preventable…the vaccines are quite “iffy” as a prevention tool. One should consider why the CDC is recommending the Gardasil vaccination.
It may actually NOT be the best thing to prevent HPV infection.
Why? Because Merck pharmaceuticals is now facing a class action lawsuit over the vaccine in Australia, and in September, 2011 it was shown that Merck lied about the vaccine only containing “virus-like” particles. In fact, the vaccines are contaminated with rDNA from the HPV virus.
People should also remember that on October 25, 2011, an advisory panel to the CDC recommended that the vaccine be administered to boys ages 9 to 26 – creating a whole new market for sales and profits.
That advisory panel actually receives a ‘kick-back’ on Gardasil sales.
Moreover, have you ever thought about the actual statistics and why the vaccine is pushed so hard…and why everyone and their neighbor says HPV is such a huge health issue?
Remember, the CDC itself says that 90% of people infected with HPV clear the virus from their system within 2 years.
There are an estimated 307,006,550 people in the United States. Let’s divide this number by 2, which will give us the 50% of people who could acquire an HPV infection sometime during their lives.
That leaves us with 153,503,275 people that will likely be infected with HPV.
So, let’s divide 153,503,275 by 2 assuming that of this number, half are women.
This leaves us with 76,751,637.
Of those, only 12,000 will be diagnosed with cervical cancer caused by HPV, and of those, 4,000 will die.
That’s 0.02% (rounded up) diagnosed with cervical cancer. Of that number, 33.3% will die.
That’s 0.005% of the numbers of HPV infected women in America.
Obviously, just one person dying is too many. However, you can see from the numbers that HPV caused cervical cancer deaths are extremely low.
It’s obvious that at $150 per shot (and it takes 3 shots to be vaccinated) Merck & Co., Inc. are going to make a killing if ALL girls are vaccinated.
Their motivation is obvious.
This guy spent the day yesterday leaving this identical comment at different WordPress blogs, under the names Simon and Will Blesch. (See the identical comment on the blog I write for.) I did some research on the guy. He is affiliated with polyDNA, a company that profits off of people with chronic HPV infections by selling a product that has been cited by the FDA for making fraudulent claims. Sort of funny for him to insinuating that it’s just Merck with a financial interest in HPV.