The Equality and Human Rights Commission must demand the Department of Health complies with equality laws by extending HPV vaccination to boys as is already done for girls, the Men and Boys Coalition has said.
In a second letter stepping up pressure on the EHRC, the Coalition noted that over seven months had passed since a wide range of stakeholders had called on the DoH to extend the HPV vaccination to boys.
“As set out in our original letter, the refusal to extend the vaccination to 12 to 13-year-old boys whilst rightly making it available to girls of the same age since 2008 is in breach of the Equality Act 2010. It is now a decade of discrimination. Given the wide range of eminent institutions that want an end to this discrimination (including the British Medical Association, British Dental Association and the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV), we are surprised that the Commission has yet to take action on this.
“Another cohort of boys should, based on health and equality reasons, have been vaccinated. This prevarication on an equalities issue cannot be accaptable and cannot continue. We would be disappointed if the Commission felt that such a delay was acceptable.”
The full letter is available here:
Extending HPV vaccination to adolescent boys 5 March 2018