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Tag: GMFA

All the latest breaking news on GMFA. Browse THEGAYUK’s complete collection of news, articles and commentary on GMFA.

  • GMFA calls for HPV jab for 357000 secondary school boys

    Sexual Health Charity GMFA have called on the UK Government to provide a HPV Vaccination to 367,000 12-year-old boys in the hope of protecting them against HPV-Related Cancers

    · HPV infection in men is associated with up to 90% of anal cancers, 60% of penile cancers, and 75% of tonsillar and base-of-tongue cancers.
    · A massive 64% of parents surveyed in a YouGov poll agreed that boys should be offered the HPV vaccine.

    GMFA, one of the biggest sexual health charities in the UK and HPV Action has called upon the government to offer boys HPV Jabs – which will protect them against HPV-Related cancers – such as anal cancer.

    Girls in the UK are already vaccinated.

    GOVERNMENT SHOULD ACT FAST
    HPV Action, a coalition of 25 patient and professional organisations, says, “The Government should act immediately to end the serious future health risks facing boys from some of the UK’s fastest growing cancers.” HPV is commonly known to be the primary cause of cervical cancer in women, but it is also a real and rapidly growing health threat to UK men and especially to gay men.

    VACCINE MOST EFFECTIVE
    Matthew Hodson, Chief Executive of GMFA, adds: “GMFA supports HPV Action’s call for HPV vaccination to be universal. The vaccine is most effective when it is given to pre-adolescents, before the age when most young gay men feel able to be open about their sexuality, even if they have accepted it. The current policy of providing the vaccination to young girls but not to young boys may help prevent heterosexual men from getting HPV sexually but provides no protection for gay men and only limited protection for bisexual men. Gay men are more likely to acquire sexually transmitted infections, including HPV, and so the current policy amplifies existing health inequalities and contributes to the high prevalence of cancers within the gay population.”

    CANCER
    In 2012 HPV accounted for 40,392 new cases – a 15% increase since 2003 of genital warts. In men HPV is associated with up to 90% of anal cancer, 60% of penile cancers and 75% of tonsillar and base-of-tongue cancers.
    Tristan Almada, who co-founded The HPV and Anal Cancer Foundation after losing his mother to HPV-related anal cancer in 2010, said: “I want to prevent the horror my family went through from ever happening to anyone else again. We have that opportunity today via universal HPV vaccination. The UK should be a leader, not a laggard, to the rest of the world.”

  • GMFA Faces Uncertain Future After Funding Cuts

    GMFA Faces Uncertain Future After Funding Cuts

    As Sexual Health becomes the focus of a new programme on Channel 4 tonight, one of UK’s leading gay health charities, GMFA looks set to be losing its funding, leaving it with an uncertain future.

    Pinknews is reporting that GMFA, which was founded in 1992, will no longer receive funding for its London HIV Information Services after being notified that funding had been cut from the Pan-London HIV Prevention Programme, which is funded by the NHS.

    Services affected will be GMFA’s websites and the sex and health magazine, FS – as well as Terrence Higgins Trust press advertising campaigns.

    GMFA’s Head of Programmes, Matthew Hodson, said:

    “I am genuinely shocked and appalled by these decisions. I fail to understand the thinking behind it. There are more gay men living with HIV in London than anywhere else in the UK, and the numbers continue to rise.

    “Considering the size of London’s gay population, there is an urgent need for broad based campaigns and information resources, which are able to reach 1,000s of men. All of the work that is continuing to be funded can at best only reach a fraction of London’s gay population, and these cuts comes at a time when the need to raise awareness is higher than ever.”

    Cary James, Head of Health Improvement Programmes at Terrence Higgins Trust, said:

    “This kind of large-scale cut to HIV prevention is always risky, but in areas of high prevalence it is positively short-sighted. The capital has by far the highest level of HIV in the UK. Cutting prevention services here will lead to an increase in new infections, each of which incurs a lifetime treatment cost to the NHS of anywhere up to £350,000. We are doing everything we can to fill the gaps, but without sustained investment in city-wide prevention work we and our partner organisations will be fighting with one arm tied behind our back.”

    The cuts come at a time where new HIV infections amongst gay men are at an all time high. Higher than the levels recorded in the 1980s.

    56 Dean Street, The Gay UK’s official sexual health partners are the focus of a brand new programme tonight on Channel 4. The documentary follows the team at London’s busiest sexual health clinic.