On 1 April, Japan’s health ministry will resume recommending that girls ages 12 to 16 get vaccinated against HPV.
Nine years ago, Japan’s health ministry made what many scientists regarded as a terrible mistake. Pressed by antivaccine activists who claimed debilitating side effects, it stopped recommending that Japanese girls get a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer. Now, in what public health officials say is a collateral benefit of the success of COVID-19 vaccines, the ministry has finally reversed its position.
But just 10 weeks later, an advisory panel suggested suspending the recommendation after a number of girls reported chronic pain, headaches, motor impairment, and other symptoms after immunization. The ministry complied, and the vaccination rate plummeted from about 70% to less than 1% of those eligible.
Evidence for effectiveness grew as well. The vaccines were approved because they prevent HPV infection, but by the late 2000s, studies showed they reduced the incidence of precancerous lesions as well. Large studies in Sweden and England, reported in 2020 and 2021, respectively, showed vaccination in the early teen years cut the risk of cervical cancer by age 30 by 87% to 88%.
Still, calls to reverse the policy increased. In 2017, 17 Japanese academic societies urged the ministry to resume support for vaccination. In 2020 and 2021, a group of parliamentarians led by cervical cancer survivor Junko Mihara asked the health ministry to reconsider its position. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the power of vaccines to reduce severe illness and deaths, which eventually tipped the scales for the HPV vaccines as well, Hanley says.
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