With all the recent chatter about vaccinations and whether or not vaccinating children causes other issues, and all the parents who are taking a stand and not immunizing their kids, it makes sense that Heidi Parker, executive director of Immunize Nevada, has her work cut out for her lately. What she didn’t anticipate was that she’d end up sharing her story on a stage at University of Nevada, Reno in front of hundreds of people.
Sharing her story comes on the heels of Immunize Nevada receiving a grant to fund a statewide education campaign about the awareness of HPV. “When I was asked to give a TEDx talk about preventing cancer through HPV vaccination, I didn’t want my HPV story to be part of it. But as I thought about it and rehearsed, I realized that not telling my story — and in fact, all of us not telling our stories — is one of the inherent problems with HPV vaccine uptake,” said Parker. “If there was a vaccine to prevent cancer, wouldn’t you get it for your child?”
The stats on HPV are scary: Roughly 33,000 HPV-related cancers are diagnosed each year in the United States – more than 20,000 in females and more than 12,000 is males. It’s also the most commonly transmitted sexual infection. Getting the HPV vaccine is an important first step in cancer prevention.
According to the CDC, Nevada falls below the national average with only 27.4 percent of girls and 7.3 percent for boys completing the HPV vaccine series. The HPV vaccine is best given between 11-12 years of age when the body will produce the best immune response and develop protection before coming in contact with the virus.
View Parker’s TEDx talk above.
