International Law

US Requirement of Cervical Cancer Vaccination for Immigrants Stirs Up Backlash

Part of my law practice includes immigration, primarily for Chinese.

The incidence of cervical cancer among Chinese women, according to a recent study, is relatively low in comparison to world statistics, but is, nevertheless, the fifth most prevalent cancer among women in China.

Section 212(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act requires certain vaccinations -- including polio, rubella, etc. -- of all immigrant visa and adjustment of status applicants. Beginning August 1 of this year, all women aged 11 to 26 who wish to apply for immigrant visas or an adjustment of status must be vaccinated against cervical cancer -- an expensive proposition -- but the decision to make HPV vaccination mandatory has created a good deal of confusion, even among the medical authorities upon which USCIS apparently relied. (Gardasil may cost as much as US$120 for a series of three shots.) Even though the Center for Disease Control (CDC) "routinely recommend[s] the vaccine:"

[...] even some of the CDC physicians and experts who promoted Gardasil [the brand name of the vaccine] in the U.S. say they never intended to make the vaccine mandatory for young female immigrants.

"If we had known about it, we would have said it's not a good idea," said Jon Abramson, who was chairman of the CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices when the body recommended the vaccine for U.S. citizens last year.

Why?

WSJ answers the question with a snippet from another interviewee:

"We don't want someone coming into the U.S. who hasn't been vaccinated against measles or chickenpox," said Dr. Abramson, who is currently chairman of the department of pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "HPV can only be communicated by sexual contact....This is not something that endangers kids in a school setting or puts your population at risk."

(I find of questionable worth the practice of offering the words of a second interviewee to fill in what the writer should logically have asked of the first interviewee.)

Given the rather surprising storm of controversy -- read the entire WSJ article for the predictable immigrant advocate groups --, it remains to be seen whether and for how long this latest vaccination requirement will remain on the books.

Full post as published by Asia Business Intelligence on October 02, 2008 (boomark / email).