Ministers 'penny-pinching' over cancer jab

Published on Thursday 23 October 2008 22:37

DOCTORS would give their children a different vaccine to protect against cervical cancer than the one that was chosen for the national programme, the GP and broadcaster Phil Hammond said yesterday.

He accused the government of "penny-pinching" after it chose a jab that, he said, did not offer as much protection as a more expensive alternative. Ministers awarded the contract to GlaxoSmithKline for its Cervarix jab over the more expensive Gardasil. But Dr Hammond said Cervarix was not as effective, and every doctor to whom he had spoken had chosen Gardasil for their children.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: "For girls who are particularly at risk of genital warts (for example, those with type 1 diabetes or extensive verrucas or hand warts) or skin conditions that make genital warts particularly unpleasant – such as extensive psoriasis or eczema – it seems unethical not to offer them Gardasil."

Both vaccines are equally effective against the strains of human papilloma virus that are responsible for seven in ten cases of cervical cancer, but only Gardasil protects against 90 per cent of genital warts.

With 100,000 new cases of genital warts in England alone each year and condoms only reducing transmission by up to 50 per cent, Dr Hammond said Gardasil was the far safer option.