CDC ends HPV vaccination requirement for immigrant women

In July 2008, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) implemented a mandate that immigrant women ages 11 to 26 who were seeking permanent resident status, must get the HPV vaccine. The mandate was considered discriminatory because it is costly and gender specific. Also, there isn't currently any requirement that American women must get the vaccine, so why should women seeking citizenship be required?

Well the CDC decided that effective December 14th, young women who are seeking legal permanent resident status in the United States will no longer be required to be vaccinated against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The Federal Register notes,"while HPV may be an age appropriate vaccine for an immigrant applicant, HPV neither causes outbreaks nor is it associated with outbreaks...Further, HPV has not been eliminated, nor is in the process of elimination, in the United States. Therefore, because HPV does not meet the adopted criteria, it will not be a required vaccine for immigrant and adjustment of status to permanent residence applicants."

It's about time! Immigrant Rights and other social justice organizations have actively opposed the mandate and have organized against it since it became policy last year. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, have been leaders in insisting that the HPV vaccine mandate be repealed. It was another giant barrier on the already path to legal immigration.

FDA recommends HPV vaccine for boys

An advisory committee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recommending that the HPV vaccine Gardasil be made available for young men. Originally approved for young women in 2006, Gardasil was created as a prevention and protection against contracting certain strains of the sexually transmitted infection (STI) that lead to cervical cancer, according to WebMD.

HPV is the most common STI and, according to the American Social Health Association, infects 75% of sexually active women and men in their lifetime; women and men. As HPV does not only affect women, it will be an important step towards global sexual health to make available the vaccine to the entire population, not just women.

Anna Giuliano, an independent scientist at Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and the trials' principal investigator, said that results from the global study have shown a 90 percent reduction in HPV and related diseases in the 5,400 male subjects, as reported to CNN.


By expanding Gardasil’s impact on the reduction of HPV and related diseases to include men, the vaccine will no longer be just one of the most important advances in women’s health care, but basic health care as well.

Newsday Tuesday, April 21st Edition

Here at FeministCampus we want to make sure that all our readers are staying in-the-know on recent feminist news, so we're going to kick off a weekly sampling of feminist news tidbits, the Cliff's Notes version, if you will! Here goes:

Good News!
We'll start off on a happy note - the Washington state legislature passed a bill expanding domestic partner rights. Although passage in the NY Senate is iffy, at the very least the New York governor announced a same sex marriage bill. I love it when public leaders take a stand! Along the same lines, let's hear it for the leaders in Sierra Leone who signed a female genital mutilation agreement. Finally, the Oregon House tips its hat to women's health by Oregon House passing an HPV vaccine bill requiring state-regulated insurance companies to cover the vaccine.

Bad News!
And the not-so-great news includes the ongoing tale of the brave Afghan Women that we wrote about last week - hundreds pelted the women in the clash between protestors and counter-protesters of a highly restrictive new Shia family law. On the home front, unfortunately the Indiana State House amended an anti-choice bill to include a fetal pain provision.

That's all for now - those of you who want a daily dose of feminist news should be sure to check out the Feminist Daily NewsWire, and @feministnews on Twitter!