By Alissa Dos SantosThe Daily Northwestern

A high price tag and lack of awareness might be keeping female Northwestern students from using a preventative vaccine against cervical cancer, students and health officials said.

Gardasil is the first vaccine of its kind to protect against the most common strains of the human papilloma virus, which cause about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts cases. HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection in the United States, according to Planned Parenthood.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that about 6.2 million Americans are infected with HPV each year, and more than half of sexually active women and men are infected with HPV at some point in their lives.

Searle Student Health Service charges $450 for the three-dose treatment, which is given over a six-month period.

“It’s very expensive,” said Dr. Donald Misch, executive director of NU Health Services. “Some insurance companies will cover it, others will not.”

“It doesn’t help them to prevent disease in 20 years,” Misch said. “It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s the reality of economics.”

The vaccine is recommended for women ages 9 to 26 and should be administered before the recipient becomes sexually active, according to the CDC.

But things are changing, said Alan Kaye, the associate executive director of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition.

“There has been a huge increase in the amount of insurance companies that are covering the vaccine,” he said.

On Feb. 2, Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order that will mandate that all sixth-grade girls in the state get the vaccine as of 2008.

Also, legislatures in about 20 states, including Illinois, are considering mandating the vaccine for school attendance, according to the Chicago Tribune, but no state legislatures have passed laws so far.

“I believe most governors will work with state legislatures on mandating rules,” Kaye said.

The vaccine could reduce cervical cancer rates in the United States by 80 to 85 percent, Kaye said.

Weinberg senior Meghan Small hasn’t yet received the vaccine, but she said she is thinking about getting it after she graduates.

“I have friends who have had a form of HPV,” Small said. “My one friend went to the doctor and was treated, but didn’t get the vaccine.”

An awareness campaign by Gardasil’s producer, Merck & Co., has educated many people on the connection between HPV and cervical cancer, Kaye said.

But Small said many of her peers still don’t know about the vaccine.

Weinberg sophomore Hannah Chapel received the first of three HPV vaccine shots Monday at Searle.

“It was so painless,” Chapel said. “I walked in the door, got the shot, no questions asked.”

Chapel recently discussed the vaccine with her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, where she is the vice president of education. The vaccine needs to be cheaper for more students to get it, she said, adding that students must take a proactive role in maintaining their health.

“It’s so easy to learn about it,” Chapel said. “We all spend so much time on Facebook, so take 30 seconds away from Facebook to Google ‘Gardasil.'”

“There is no excuse for you dying from cervical cancer in this country given how slowly cervical cancer develops,” Misch said.

Reach Alissa Dos Santos at [email protected].