A study by Mayo Clinic and others made public on March 18, 2013, in the journal Pediatrics finds that an increasing number of parents are opting not to have their daughters immunized against the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Forty-four percent of parents said they would not have their daughters immunized against HPV in 2010. The vaccine prevents cervical cancer and other genital cancers by preventing the HPV infections that lead to those cancers.
The research was based on vaccination data for teens aged 13 to 17 in the 2008 to 10 National Immunization Survey of Teens.
The reasons parents refused to have their daughters immunized against HPV were: the vaccine was not recommended; lack of knowledge; it is unnecessary; the vaccine is inappropriate for the child's age; worry about safety/side effects; and the child isn't sexually active.
The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 11,967 new cases of HPV associated cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year.
During the time frame of the Mayo Clinic study, the CDC reported that “Oral sex is also increasingly linked to transmission of HPV, which may be linked to cancers of the throat and oral cavity, in addition to cervical cancer” and that two-thirds of Americans aged 15 to 24 have engaged in oral sex.
This parental decision would be just fine if the parent that made the decision had to pay for the cervical cancer treatment out of their pocket instead of the taxpayer paying for cervical cancer treatment through Medicare or Medicaid and the entirety of the must be insured U. S. population paying higher insurance rates.
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