SaneVax: It appears that Australia’s HPV vaccination program is going to cost the taxpayers more than originally estimated. Apparently, government health officials neglected to make it perfectly clear to medical consumers that Pap Smears are still required after being vaccinated for HPV (human papillomavirus). Now the taxpayers get to pay for an ‘educational campaign’ to let medical consumers know that unless they continue to get regular Pap Smears after HPV vaccination, the cervical cancer rate could increase. What is wrong with this picture?
Young South Australian women shunning regular pap smears
By Health Reporter Jordanna Schriever, Adelaidenow
YOUNG South Australian women are shunning pap smears, with just 45.4 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds undergoing the cervical cancer screening test.
The figure has been declining in SA and across the country since the introduction in 2007 of a national immunisation program offering the Gardasil vaccine free to women aged 12 to 26.
The drop – from 48.8 per cent in 2007-08 – has prompted SA Health to embark on a social media campaign about the importance of having a pap smear every two years.
SA Health clinical practice consultant Jodi Knoop said women wrongly assumed the Gardasil vaccine, which protects against a range of cancerous strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), meant pap smears were no longer needed.
Read the entire article here.
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