Sign the petition: Tell the CDC to Reverse the HPV Vaccine Requirement for Immigrant Women and Girls!

Please note that the petition deadline has been extended to February 13, 2009. Please circulate this email to your listserves.

Dear Friends:

Please sign the petition to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asking it to reverse the newly imposed Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination mandate for immigrant women and girls. To view and sign the petition, go to http://www.petitiononline.com/napawf/petition.html by COB Friday, February 13, 2009.

In response to the high number of individuals who wished to sign-on to the organizational sign-on letter to the CDC circulated last week, this petition was created to allow individuals to express their opposition to the mandate. The petition will serve as a follow-up to the organizational sign-on letter to the CDC that will be sent next week.

As you may know, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in 2007 recommended that Gardasil, the only FDA approved HPV vaccine, be administered to females ages 11 to 26 in the U.S. This recommendation became an automatic requirement for those applying for immigrant visas or adjustment to permanent residency status when the government updated its vaccination list in July 2008. U.S. citizens are currently not required to receive the vaccination, and yet it is mandatory for prospective immigrants. Although the HPV vaccine has been deemed safe and effective by the FDA, it is not designed to combat the types of infectious diseases that the immigration requirements are intended to address. Moreover, the vaccine is prohibitively expensive-costing a minimum of $360 to receive the three-dose vaccination in addition to over $1,000 in filing fees-making the mandate an undue financial burden for prospective immigrant women and their families.

Please join us in asking the CDC to retract its listing of HPV as a required vaccination for immigrants in the revised Technical Instructions to the Civil Surgeons for Vaccination Requirements, which would eliminate the directive for civil surgeons to administer the vaccine to immigrant females ages 11 to 26.

We urge you to sign on to this petition to put pressure on the CDC to correct this unfair and burdensome requirement on immigrants. To learn more, please contact Nancy Chung at nchung@napawf.org.

The deadline for sign-ons is COB Friday, February 13, 2009.

Nancy K. Chung, Esq.
Reproductive Justice Fellow and Georgetown Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum
6930 Carroll Avenue, Ste 506
Takoma Park, MD 20912
o: 301-270-4440
f: 301-270-1882
www.napawf.org