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Girls as young as 12 could get cancer vaccine

Girls as young as 12 could be vaccinated against cervical cancer from as early as autumn next year, following a recommendation by an independent expert advisory committee yesterday.

The jabs would revolutionise the approach to beating cervical cancer, which kills more than 1000 women in the UK, including more than 100 in Scotland, each year.

The Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the Department of Health and the Scottish Executive, recommended the vaccine should be introduced routinely for girls aged about 12 to 13 years to protect against the sexually transmitted infection human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes about 70% of the cases of cervical cancer.

The move was widely welcomed by medical experts and charities. The notable exception was the Catholic Church in Scotland which in the past has warned it could give the "green light" to under-age sex. Scotland already has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the developed world.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "As a social policy the jab can only work when it's arm-in-arm with a huge public health programme, mirroring the size of the anti-smoking campaign, which promotes the safeguarding of sex within marriage.

"We must free our young to realise that a sex-partner is for life for this also protects life."

Full story at The Herald.