UHS To Offer Cheap Vaccine

After months of lobbying by students for price reductions, Harvard University Health Services (UHS) said yesterday that it would offer the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for $25 per shot.

Women under the age of 26 on Harvard’s insurance plan will be able to obtain the vaccine, which has been shown to decrease risk of cervical cancer, at the new price from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. today at a “Gardasil Clinic” in the Holyoke Center.

The price drop comes after the Harvard College Women’s Center, the Seneca, and 13 other organizations led a campaign last year to publicize the benefits of the HPV vaccine in an attempt to pressure UHS into subsidizing the cost of the vaccine. Each shot in the series used to cost $154.

All students with Harvard’s Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance can start the six-month, three-shot series at the reduced price today.

The reduced rate is temporary and set to end on July 31, 2009, according to UHS Director David S. Rosenthal ’59. Harvard decided to subsidize part of the vaccine’s cost because the immunization was introduced while many students were at Harvard and were unable to receive it with full insurance coverage before enrolling, Rosenthal wrote in an e-mailed statement.

The price drop will not lead to increases in student health fees, according to Rosenthal.

Rachel M. Berkey ’08, president of the Harvard Cancer Society, said that she was thrilled that many students who could not afford the vaccine at last year’s price will now be able to get it easily.

Berkey said she hoped that more funding will be identified in the future so that the program can continue beyond its current July 2009 cutoff.

“This is certainly not an issue that ends with the current system,” Berkey said.

Bridget Duffy, a staff assistant at the Women’s Center, said that the Women’s Center considers the price drop a radical step in the right direction.

Duffy added that the Women’s Center may organize another informational campaign about the vaccine, similar to the effort the center led last year.

The vaccine has been shown to defend women against four of the sexually transmitted strains of HPV that cause 70 percent of cervical cancer, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

Several states are considering making the HPV vaccine mandatory for young women entering high school, but they face objections from groups who consider the availability of the vaccine an infringement on parental rights.