A Free HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine is available at the Skyline College Health Center for female students of ages 18 years of age and younger. This vaccine protects against the four most common types of HPV; numbers six and eleven which cause genital warts, and numbers sixteen and eighteen which cause cervical cancer. The vaccination consists of a series of three doses over a six month period. After the first dose, the patient must wait two months before getting the second. Four months after the second dose, the patient is given the third. Patients are told to wait twenty minutes after receiving the vaccination to make sure there are no allergic reactions occur. Many women on campus were happy to hear that the vaccination is being offered at Skyline.”Before I would get the vaccination I would want to know more about it,” Disabled Student Program Services Staff Member Janet Weber says. “But I think it’s good that it’s available.” Merck, the only company that produces the HPV vaccination, ran a clinical trial with 30,000 females around the country to test the vaccine.”They’ve worked it out in the clinical trials so that the vaccine will give you immunity in the end,” Health Center Nurse Jan Gersonde says. The vaccination process through Skyline is ran by a program called Vaccines for Children, which is why it is only free and available for females 18 years old or younger.The vaccination process is also confidential. According to Gersonde, in 2003 HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) passed a law to ensure confidentiality for all healthcare information in every clinic, hospital, and doctors’ office in the country. “Everything that happens here is confidential,” Gersonde says. Students who are younger than 18 are required to get a form explaining about the vaccination purpose and process signed by a parent or guardian in order to be able to get the vaccination. For female students between the ages of 19 and 26 who are seeking a free HPV vaccination can go to Planned Parenthood in San Mateo www.ppgg.org.”To me it’s really exciting to have this vaccine because it’s the first vaccine that has ever been developed to protect people from cancer,” Gersonde says.