DH criticised over choice of cervical vaccine

22 Jul 2008

A stinging editorial in the BMJ this week has criticised the Department of Health's decision to choose a bivalent rather than a quadrivalent vaccine for the HPV vaccination campaign.

Professor Jane Kim, from the department of health policy and management at Harvard University, wrote that the decision ‘implies that the Department of Health is willing to accept foregone health benefits and additional cost savings from averting cases of genital warts for the reduced financial outlay'.

Prof Kim was commenting on an analysis by Health Protection Authority researchers which found the Government will save up to £18.6m in the first year of the programme, assuming 80% national coverage of 12-year-old girls with three doses of Cervarix instead of Gardasil.

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Anonymous,

23 Jul 2008

Penny-wise and pound-foolish could not be better portrayed by this short-sightedness. Only a non-medical decision making body that probably runs rough-shod over medical sense can arrive at this conclusion when the benefits are obvious. I can see patients of cervical cancer suing the DoH, years from now on the basis that a quadvalent vaccine could have protected them. RUPEN KULKARNI

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