By Linda Borg
PROVIDENCE — Starting this fall, seventh-graders in all public and private schools will be required to get a vaccine that protects against a sexually transmitted virus linked to various genital cancers, especially cervical cancer in women.
Students who fail to get the vaccine for HPV — or the human papillomavirus — will be precluded from attending school unless their parents seek an exemption for medical or religious reasons. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States. It is widespread: there are more than 14 million new infections annually, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Rhode Island becomes the third jurisdiction, including Virginia and Washington, D.C., to make the vaccine mandatory.
Locally, some parents are already agitating against the vaccine, saying it’s an intrusion by the government into private matters and that the vaccine’s side effects can be serious.
http://www.providencejournal.com
Related Articles:
Gardasil: We Thought We Made the Right Choice
