Latina teens lag in vaccinations for cervical cancer
October 10, 2008 | 9:16
am
From a story by Times Staff Writer Thomas H. Maugh:
About a quarter of U.S. teen girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday....
But immunologist W. Martin Kast of USC's Keck School of Medicine said, "Twenty-five percent is not bad, but it's not good either."
He said data released earlier in the year by Gardasil's manufacturer, Merck & Co., show that only about 1% of Latina teens were receiving the vaccine, and "they are the population that needs it the most" because the frequency of infection is relatively high.
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-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
