STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3677

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.C.R. No. 51

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred H.C.R. No. 51 entitled:

 

"HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO ASSESS THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF REQUIRING CERVICAL CANCER VACCINATIONS FOR GIRLS BEFORE THEY ENTER THE SEVENTH GRADE,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to request the Department of Health to assess whether to require cervical cancer vaccinations for young women before they enter the seventh grade.

 

     Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

 

     Your Committee finds that, in 2007, over eleven thousand women in the United States contracted cervical cancer and approximately four thousand women died from this disease.

 

     Your Committee further finds that to be most effective, the Federal Drug Administration approved human papillomavirus ("HPV") vaccine should be given before a person becomes sexually active and the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that the HPV vaccine be given routinely to females ages eleven to twelve and as early as nine years old, and that women ages thirteen to twenty six should be vaccinated.

 

     Your Committee recognizes the studies that show the HPV vaccine to be one hundred per cent effective at preventing disease from high-risk types of HPV that account for ninety per cent of genital warts and seventy per cent of all cervical cancers.  Given the supporting scientific data it would be in the best interest of young females to have the Department of Health determine whether the HPV vaccine should be required for all young women before they enter the seventh grade.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of H.C.R. No. 51, and recommends its adoption.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

 

 

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair