Brockport Prof Says Compulsory HPV Vaccination is Morally Justified

BROCKPORT, NY (03/30/2009)(readMedia)-- Joseph E. Balog, PhD, associate professor of health science at The College at Brockport, says that a compulsory vaccination program to fight the spread of the human papillomavirus (HPV) is justifiable on moral, scientific, and public health grounds. His arguments are published in a paper that appears in the April edition of The American Journal of Public Health.

Balog's paper compares the prevalence and threats of HPV to those posed by the polio epidemic of the 1950s. He suggests that a similar vaccination program should be debated and seriously considered.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that approximately 6.2 million new cases of HPV infections are reported every year and that 20 million people in the United States already have HPV. The CDC estimates 26 percent of US women are infected with some type of HPV, and one in four US women between the ages of 14 and 59 years is infected with a sexually transmitted form of HPV that in some cases can cause cervical cancer. The CDC estimates that 11,000 newly diagnosed cases of cervical cancer occur annually in the US, resulting in more than 3,700 deaths.

HPV is a term that encompasses a group of over 100 viruses; 30 are sexually transmitted and two strains (HPV -16 and HPV 18) are associated with about 70 percent of all cervical cancers, and two strains (HPV - 6 and HPV - 8) are associated with 90 percent of genital warts. The HPV vaccine that is available to the public targets these four types of HPV.

"A compulsory HPV vaccination of young girls has been proposed as a public health intervention to reduce the threat of the disease. The proposal raises the issue of whether government should use its police powers to restrict liberty and parental autonomy for the purpose of preventing harm to young people. I concluded that compulsory HPV vaccinations can be justified on moral, scientific, and public health grounds," Balog wrote.

Balog joined The College at Brockport Department of Health Science in 1982. His research and teaching focuses on the areas of bioethics in health education, including the ethical issues associated with abstinence-only education, the availability of condoms in school, and what it means to be healthy.