Quarter of U.S. girls get cervical-cancer vaccine

About one-quarter of U.S. teenage girls received the cervical-cancer vaccine Gardasil in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday.

The figures represent the government's first substantial study of vaccination rates for Gardasil, Merck's heavily advertised, three-shot series that targets the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV.

The vaccine protects against strains of the virus that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

"For a new vaccine, 25 percent is really very good," Lance Rodewald, director of the division of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference releasing the data.

"We need to see that rate every year if we are going to meet our goal" of having 90 percent of teenagers vaccinated, he said.

But immunologist W. Martin Kast, of the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, said, "Twenty-five percent is not bad, but it's not good either."

He said data released earlier by Merck show that only about 1 percent of Hispanic teenagers are receiving the vaccine, and "they are the population that needs it the most" because the frequency of infection is relatively high.

Researchers also said the percentage of teens receiving two other relatively new vaccines went up. About 32 percent of teens received the meningitis vaccine, up from 20 percent in 2006; and 30 percent received the tetanus, diphtheria and whooping-cough vaccine, up from 19 percent in 2006.

Merck received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to begin marketing Gardasil in June 2006. Experts said it spent $100 million marketing it in 2007 and had sales of about $1.5 billion.

The vaccine has been criticized on a number of fronts. Some scientists said it is only modestly effective and its safety has not been adequately proved. Conservative groups said that giving it to young girls implies approval of sexual activity. And consumer advocates bemoan its price: $360 for a series of three shots.

The survey was based on telephone interviews with a representative sample of nearly 3,000 teens 13 to 17; their answers were confirmed with vaccination records from physicians.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.