Two vaccines to prevent cervical cancer are nearing approval in the United States and Europe, but they are causing controversy because they are recommended for use in children aged 11 or 12, before they begin sexual activity, Dr Robert Steinbrook, a national correspondent of the New England Journal of Medicine said in a recent edition of the journal (2006;354: 1109-12).

Conservative groups in the US say that use of the vaccine would encourage young people to be promiscuous. The Family Research Council, which earlier said that adolescents should be getting a message about abstinence, later said that it would support use of the vaccines but would oppose efforts to make vaccination mandatory …