The Center for American Progress invites you to a special presentation:
Preventing HPV, Easy as 1,2,3 Shots? Ensuring Access to the New Anti-Cancer Vaccines
Featuring:
Deborah Arrindell, Vice President of Health Policy, American Social Health Association (ASHA)
Thomas R. Broker, Ph.D., President, International Papillomavirus Society
Neal A. Halsey, MD, Director, Institute for Vaccine Safety, Professor, Department of International Health, Disease Prevention and Control Program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Gregory Zimet, Professor of Pediatrics and Clinical Psychology, Section of Adolescent Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine
Moderated by:
Shira Saperstein , Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline have developed two new vaccines that could drastically reduce or eliminate cervical cancer around the world. The vaccines target human papillomavirus (HPV), a common infectious disease whose most dangerous strains cause 70 percent of all cervical cancer. The development of these vaccines is only the first step, however, towards reducing cervical cancer. A number of political, policy, funding and logistical challenges must be overcome in order to ensure widespread access and effective use. For example, what are the political and social concerns that need to be addressed to introduce a new vaccine successfully? What are the best means of ensuring widespread access to the vaccines, particularly among those most at-risk of cervical cancer? How will parents respond to new vaccines for pre-teens? What problems are presented by distributing the vaccines internationally? Join the Center for American Progress and a panel of experts as we explore these and other issues that must be addressed in order to realize the promise of this major public health breakthrough.
Resources
Video
Event Transcript (PDF)
Read also:
The Hidden Victims of Cervical Cancer
Don’t Let Politics Interfere in the Fight against Cervical Cancer
HPV Fact Sheet (PDF)
The Progressive Bioethics Initiative
Women’s Health and Rights
Program: 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Light refreshments will be provided.
Admission is free.
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Biographies
Deborah Arrindell is Vice President of Health Policy for the American Social Health Association (ASHA) and head of ASHA’s Washington, D.C. Office. Before joining ASHA, Ms. Arrindell held numerous positions in health and social policy, including serving as Executive Director of the Home Care Aide Association of America, as Associate Director of Governmental Affairs for the American Nurses Association, Assistant Director of Social Policy for the League of Women Voters and Public Policy Director for Wider Opportunities for Women. She is currently on the board of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, the Global Campaign for Microbicides, and the Alliance for Microbicides Development. She has served in a leadership capacity on the Boards of other national organizations including National Organizations Responding to AIDS and the National STD Prevention Partnership. She has more than 25 years experience in social policy, including work for women’s economic justice, reproductive and sexual health and employment and training.
Thomas R. Broker, Ph.D., serves as President of the International Papillomavirus Society, which holds annual Scientific and Clinical Conferences (the next being in Prague, The Czech Republic, Sept. 1-7, 2006). The Society is also sponsoring or co-sponsoring a major series of regional Clinical Training & Scientific Workshops in countries around the world to further HPV education, advocacy and public health activities, in advance of the anticipated availabilities of HPV vaccines and improved molecular diagnostic screening tools. Tom and his wife Louise T. Chow, Ph.D. and their biochemistry laboratory have investigated the mechanisms of HPV DNA replication and segregation, gene expression and regulation, protein function, pathogenesis and carcinogenesis, and molecular epidemiology and natural history since 1980, successively at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, University of Rochester, and University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Neal A. Halsey, MD, is the Director for the Institute for Vaccine Safety and is Professor in the Department of International Health, Disease Prevention and Control Program, in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Halsey received his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin Center for Health Sciences in Madison. He is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases. His research interests have focused on vaccine-preventable diseases and he has authored or co-authored more than 200 peer reviewed publications on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. He has served on advisory committees for immunizations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and the World Health Organization.
Gregory Zimet is a Professor of Pediatrics and Clinical Psychology in the Section of Adolescent Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. He received his doctoral degree from Duke University in 1985 and did his Clinical Psychology Internship and post-doctoral training at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH. Dr. Zimet has been at Indiana University since 1993, where he has developed a research program focusing on issues related to acceptability of vaccines designed to prevent sexually transmitted infections, including HPV. He has authored or co-authored over 20 research articles and review papers related to this topic.
Shira Saperstein is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Deputy Director and Program Director for Women’s Rights and Reproductive Health at the Moriah Fund, a private foundation based in Washington, D.C. and operating in the United States and internationally. Moriah gives away $8 million annually in grants to organizations working on women’s rights and health, poverty and economic justice in the United States, international trade and development, human rights and social justice in Guatemala, and pluralism and equal rights in Israel. Moriah’s Women’s Rights program seeks to enable women and adolescents to protect and promote their sexual and reproductive health, and to transform the legal, political, economic and cultural structures that sustain gender discrimination and violence and that limit women’s full participation in society. Before joining Moriah in 1989, Shira worked as a researcher at several policy and advocacy organizations and as part of a consulting team at the Management Assistance Group, which provided organizational development assistance to a wide range of advocacy and service nonprofits. Shira was the founding Co-Chair of the Funders’ Network for Population, Reproductive Rights and Health (1997-99) and currently serves on the board of the Summit Foundation and on the Steering Committee of the Global Campaign for Microbicides. She is a graduate of Harvard University.