What Sisters Need to Know About Cervical Cancer: 100 Percent Preventable

By Joseph Young
WI Staff Writer

Thursday, January 18, 2007

The strong, outgoing 25-year-old woman with her full-figured body felt small inside. Devastated. Alone, she walked in a fog and, suddenly, her burst of optimism seemed clear: No woman has to be diagnosed with cervical cancer. No woman has to die of cervical cancer.

This was six years ago, and the cervical cancer survivor, Tamika Felder, now 31, is an activist for the prevention of this deadly disease.

Last week, Felder, along with 20 African American female clinicians, came together at a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Northwest to support the ISIS Project, a campaign by the Black healthcare nonprofit organization, Balm In Gilead, to educate Black women about the prevention of cervical cancer. They also work to encourage women to take the human papillomavirus (HPV) test and become knowledgeable about the HPV vaccine.

The vaccine, known as Gardasil, is a product of Merck & Co., Inc., which also is a sponsor of the ISIS Project, along with the Digene Corporation, makers of a HPV test.

The diagnosis changed Felder, perhaps forever. Cervical cancer took away her ability to procreate. "I long for children," says Felder who was explicit about her situation. "It's a hard pill to swallow."

She loss her cervix and connected tissue, uterus and the top one-third of her vagina. "I was 25, working as a TV producer," says Felder, who loss her father to colon cancer before she reached her 17th birthday. "I was devastated."

She began radiation treatment and the chemotherapy, each day for eight weeks. "They take your body and burn it from the inside out to heal you," says Felder.

The illness is common. Using the American Cancer Society's estimates from 2004, the ISIS Project reports that about 10,500 women in the U.S. will develop cervical cancer yearly and about 3,900 will die from it.

The national incidence rate for the disease is 8.8 per 100,000 females. Washington's rate is 13.5 per 100,000. The rate of cervical cancer among Black women is 50 percent higher than that of White women, and Black women have the highest cervical cancer death rate of any group of women in the U.S., according to the ISIS Project.

Felder believes that the situation doesn't have to be this way, if women get cervical cancer screening, which includes the Pap smear and HPV tests.

Cervical cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus. Through HPV and Pap tests, the cancer can be prevented before it starts or early enough to encourage recovery.

A Pap test looks for cell changes in the cervix that might lead to cancer. When used together, the Pap and HPV tests can better identify women needing early intervention to prevent cervical cancer.

An HPV vaccine is now on the market. In June, the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil for women and girls, making it the first vaccine marketed specifically to prevent cancer.

According to Merck's website, more than 12,000 women participated in the trial study in several nations, including Brazil, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Merck's Web site also said that there were no negative side effects. "There were no discontinuations due to serious vaccine related adverse events," the site says. "Adverse events were higher among those who receive Gardasil compared with placebo recipients. The most common vaccine related adverse event reported was local discomfort at the injection site."

HPV can be spread through vaginal sex, anal sex and, possibly, oral sex. Any skin-to-skin contact in the genital area can spread the virus. There is no cure for the virus once it has been contracted.

Currently, there is no FDA-approved HPV test for men. HPV infection has been linked to cancer of the penis and anus, both of which are very rare in men. Twenty million American men and women are infected with HPV, according to Merck's Web site.

Last week, D.C. Council members David A. Catania (I-At-Large) and Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) introduced a bill that would require adding the HPV vaccine to the list of shots that girls would have to get before enrolling in the sixth grade.

Catania, who is the chairman of the D.C. Committee on Health, says that the legislation is based on the Center for Disease Control's recommendation that the vaccine be administered to pre-pubescent girls that have yet to become sexually active.

Taking the recommendation literally, Dr. Estelle H. Whitney, national medical spokesperson for Balm In Gilead, says she injected her daughters, Imani, 13, and Jennifer, 19, with the vaccine.

"By protecting our children now, we will be saving lives later," says Catania.