HPV vaccine free in Columbia until December

The vaccine is also at the Student Health Center for a fee.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published Sept. 22, 2009

The Missouri Foundation for Health is enabling the Columbia/Boone County Health Clinic to continue administering the Gardasil vaccine for free, making it possible for more MU students to protect themselves from the human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer.

Since 2007, the grant has given the health clinic the means to administer more than 3,980 doses of the vaccine, but at the end of the year the grant will expire. The Health Clinic administers the shot for the Family Health Center, which is the federally qualified health center near the clinic.

"The FHC said they would rather that they shift the vaccine so that the distribution could go through our clinic," said Mary Martin, Public Health manager for the Boone County clinic. "The Family Health Center provides us with the vaccine and we distribute it as a part of our vaccine program on a walk-in basis."

Before the Missouri Foundation for Health produced the grant, the cost of the recommended three doses of the vaccine totaled approximately $375. For women who wanted the shot but did not have the money to spend on it, Martin said the process for the health department to apply for financial assistance for the patient was complicated and convoluted.

"Before the grant came out, we were doing a program in our family planning clinic that was pretty cumbersome," Martin said. "We were really excited when we found out that we could get the vaccine without any strings attached."

The vaccine is also available at the Student Health Center, but for a fee. The center makes sure to alert students to the opportunity they have to get the shot for free through the public health department as well as the Kansas City and Mid-Missouri Planned Parenthood sites.

"People are in charge of their own health," Student Health Center spokeswoman Heather Eatsman-Mueller said. "It's a right that everybody should have access to and control of their own reproductive heath and have access to information about resources so they can make educated decisions that impact their future and current health."

The vaccine was designed to protect against HPV, and according to the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services Web site, the virus can result in genital warts and warts along the upper respiratory tract. Each year, the virus infects 10,000 women and kills 3,700. The FDA is also testing the vaccine in men to determine if it would be safe and effective for them to use.

The Missouri Student Association Senate Speaker Amanda Shelton and MSA as a whole have made it a point to pass legislation aimed at making students more aware of the opportunity to receive this shot at no cost.

"The legislation does not actually recommend that people get the vaccine; it simply alerts people to the opportunity to get it for free right now," Shelton said.

The Health Clinic is one of approximately 107 clinics across the MFFH funding area that received the grant.

"The way that it was set up was that we actually worked with Missouri Family Planning Council and the Missouri Primacy Care Association and they provided product to health departments and other health providers and that's how it worked out," MFFH program officer Thomas Adams said. "The Gardasil went to an umbrella organization and it trickled down to this clinic."