HPV Vaccinations

Debate between Jim Shannon and Paul Beresford

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered HPV vaccinations.

I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Dame Maria. I am also delighted to see the Minister. The subject of the debate is vaccination against the human papillomavirus. Unusually, both the Minister and I have seen HPV-related cancers, the destruction that the surgery to get rid of them does in providing a so-called cure, and how that often leaves patients. To be a little more positive, we have markedly moved our healthcare towards prevention. An increasingly vital arm of our preventive attack on various diseases must be vaccination. A vaccination strategy must focus not only on protection, but on elimination. For some diseases, we have been able to move towards elimination of the causative agent. That is the drive for me in this debate.

Vaccination has been around for a long time, ever since Dr Edward Jenner used the pus from a cowpox sore to inoculate an eight-year-old boy against smallpox in 1787—the first of thousands of people he and others inoculated and saved from smallpox that year. Millions upon millions have been inoculated since. I have no doubt that in this day and age, Dr Edward Jenner would have been up before the General Medical Council and struck off for recklessly endangering life, spreading disease and not following the guidance of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation—I do not cross swords with it very often, but I have done so in the distant past. Since 1787, the development of vaccines has saved multiple millions of lives and stopped even more millions from various serious illnesses. The brilliant development and use of covid vaccines was a spectacular example of how far and how quickly we can progress.

I remember the mass inoculation programme against the polio epidemic from when I was a very small child. We saw polio spread through our community. If I remember correctly, the vaccination was a series of three injections in the upper arm using a syringe with a needle that was, in my view as a child, like a hollow 4-inch nail sharpened at the working end. It was plunged into my arm, reused after sterilisation and sharpened on a leather strop. It really hurt. Of course, the polio vaccine is now just a sugar cube carrying the vaccine, and kids love it. It has effectively wiped out polio in this country and most others. As we are all aware, there have been huge advances in the development, delivery and programming of vaccines, particularly for small children, who have been given huge protection against a variety of diseases. Over decades, vaccinators have had the chance to rid the world of some of these nasty diseases. Polio has been virtually eradicated. Apart from a few pockets in the world, yellow fever—a horrendous disease—has gone. Smallpox has gone. Measles went, but it has come back, because the vaccinations slipped.

I turn to HP viruses. They are a large family of viruses, at least two of which are downright dangerous to humans because they are causative agents of very many human cancers. They cause cervical, uterine and penile cancers and—in my professional area, which the Minister is aware of from her point of view—head and neck cancers. I point out my professional interest as a very part-time dentist. Head and neck cancers can be very hard to detect early and are frequently very destructive to treat. Surgery is frequently required. Such surgery commonly impairs normal living, such as eating, smiling and talking, and often physical appearance.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate; he is right to have done so. I know that the Minister will respond in a very positive fashion, as she always does. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government and the Minister must perhaps be clearer on why one dose is now needed, when parents in my constituency with a medical background tell me that one dose will not seal the vaccination? They are asking why covid boosters were essential, but this standard form of vaccination does not seem to be.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

As ever with the hon. Member’s interventions—which are frequent, as we have noticed, and press releases must result from them—he raises an interesting point. I will touch on it as I move on.

As I said, head and neck cancers can be hard to detect early. They are destructive to treat. However, we have had a vaccine for some time. For many years, there has been an initially very successful UK campaign to vaccinate teenage girls, targeting protection against cervical cancer. As the Minister will be aware, various colleagues and I, along with various groups, ran a campaign to make the vaccine available for teenage boys as well. The vaccine has been given to young teenage boys and girls and is not in the package received by infants. To be successful, we can and must drive the virus out. To do that, we must obtain herd immunity, with an overwhelming majority of teenagers inoculated—90% is the minimum target—but that is not happening. In 2021-22, only 9.8% of year 8 boys in this country were fully vaccinated. The figure for girls is better, but it is still only 67.3%.

With experience from the covid vaccine, we now have a real opportunity to rid the country of this deadly virus through an effective, concerted campaign, as we did with covid. The scientists have helped and, as has been mentioned, the HPV vaccination initially required two spaced injections, which have now been reduced to one. They use modern, fine, sharp needles, unlike the needles I was used to, meaning an essentially painless application.

There are some hurdles. This is being given to young teenagers, preferably both boys and girls, but an isolated vaccination is unfortunately not part of the package of early year vaccinations. Because early HPV vaccinations were promoted as preventing cervical cancer, some groups wrongly saw them as promoting promiscuity. That could not be further from the truth. For that reason, in our next campaign we should tend to slant the promotion more to the prevention of death and disfiguration from head and neck cancers, as well as cervical and penile cancer.

The NHS developed IT systems on a personal, individual level over the covid campaign. Someone on the campaign list would get constant reminders to get the covid boosters; those reminders kept coming until they had got the boosters. The same could be applied to HPV, especially as teenagers’ lives are generally dominated by their phones. A vigorous campaign in schools would help, and pushing in GP practices so that parents got involved.

As someone born in New Zealand, it pains me to say that the Australians are driving for an HPV-free nation, and I have heard that the New Zealanders are following suit. The Aussies appear to be winning against the virus. They are on the edge of being below four cervical cancer cases per 100,000 annually. If the Australians can do it, we can darn well do it.

The consequences of removing this virus are enormous: saving lives, saving thousands from disfiguring and often debilitating surgery and, most importantly, saving vast sums from our precious health budget. Minister, let’s get on with it.