Anal cancer rise in gay men prompts calls for vaccinations
Gardasil vaccine and box (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The BMA has called for the HPV immunisation programme to be widened to include gay men , in an effort to tackle ‘alarming’ rates of HPV-related disease. According to a report this week in Pulse Magazine , Colm O’Mahony, chair of the BMA’s dermatology and venereology subcommittee and BMA public health committee co-chair Penelope Toff have written to health minister Anna Soubry supporting offering the Gardasil vaccine to gay men. The BMA letter said that although it would be difficult to identify young gay men for a vaccine programme, the HPV vaccine could be administered at genitourinary medicine clinics or community sexual health clinics, perhaps as an add-on vaccination for patients receiving a hepatitis B vaccination. The letter added that ‘the increasing incidence of HPV and development of anal lesions in gay men, particularly HIV positive gay men, is alarming...