By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Pflugerville ISD Health Services offered a free vaccine that prevents 75 percent of certain cancer cases last weekend, but they couldn’t even give it away.

The district administered 186 vaccinations to 77 students during the sports physical and vaccine clinic at Pflugerville High School, but only 12 students opted for the free human papillomavirus shots that normally cost $200 each and prevent 90 percent of genital wart cases in men and women.

“One thing that I can tell you about the HPV vaccine is it hasn’t been embraced by the community to the extent that I thought it would,” Health Services Coordinator Susan Franzetti said.

According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately 20 million Americans are infected with sexually-transmitted HPV, and 6 million become newly infected each year.

“HPV is so common that at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women get it at some point in their lives,” according to the CDC website.

Two years after Gov. Rick Perry’s ill-fated mandate requiring Texas public-school children to receive the vaccine, it remains available for free to children in PISD thanks to the Texas for Vaccines Program.

“The very sad thing about vaccines is that most people do not remember these vaccine-preventable diseases and so they don’t recall how much this could impact a child for the rest of their lives. Very few people remember polio, which we now vaccinate against,” Franzetti said. “And that’s the sad thing about people who are against vaccines. Granted, there are risks and benefits any time you put a foreign substance into the body, but it’s the benefit of the many that outweighs the risk of few.”

According to the makers of the vaccine called Gardasil, the most common side effects are pain, swelling, itching, bruising and redness at the injection site, as well as headaches, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and fainting. It is administered in a series of three injections over the course of six months, totaling a retail cost of $600, but is available free to PISD students.

“On Saturday during sports physicals, which has a cost benefit of over $15,000 if the students had to self pay for these services. If these 77 students had a $25.00 co-pay with insurance, the cost would be over $1900, and during these pressing economic times, even a few dollars saved is valued,” Franzetti said in an e-mail. “The TVFC is funded partially by the federal government and by the state, and these are expenditures that taxpayers should be proud of.”

If administered between ages 9 and 26, the vaccine prevents the four common strains of Human papillomavirus that account for most cases of genital warts and cervical cancer.

The American Cancer Society estimates in 2009 about 11,270 new cases of invasive cervical cancer were diagnosed amounting in the deaths of 4,070 women younger than 50.

The district sponsors around 30 vaccine clinics a year, Franzetti said, providing many of the mandatory immunizations necessary for students to enter school, remain in school and graduate.

Students can also schedule appointments to get their shots from the district.

New immunization rules will be in effect next year requiring students entering 7th and 8th grades to be up to date with their Tdap, Varicella and Meningococcal vaccines.

Children entering kindergarten and 1st grade will require 2 hepatitis A and 2 Varicella immunizations.

For more information on PISD student health service, visit pflugervilleisd.net/dept/inst_suppt/services/student_health.cfm

jrincon@pflugervillepflag.com