Calendar set for HPV vaccine: Pioneer of the struggle, pharmacist Cem Kılınç, speaks to 12punto...

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Minister of Health Kemal Memişoğlu gave a date for the HPV vaccine during a television program he attended. Memişoğlu said, "We will launch our vaccination program for these at the end of 2025. We will make the HPV vaccine available to all our children from the age of 13 and to all our citizens over the age of 15."

Pharmacist Cem Kılınç, who has been fighting for many years for the HPV vaccine to be administered to everyone free of charge, spoke to 12punto following Minister Memişoğlu's statements. Kılınç said, "In terms of age, reasonable ages were mentioned according to the initial statements. But it is still a vague statement. We are currently waiting for the Ministry of Health to share photos of children receiving the vaccine."

‘80 PERCENT OF WOMEN CONTRACT HPV AT LEAST ONCE’

I am asking for those watching this broadcast for the first time and wondering why the HPV vaccine should be free: There is misinformation regarding the harms of the HPV vaccine, ministers have changed during this years-long struggle, and promises made were not kept. How do you evaluate this entire process?

"This was actually a politicized issue before we addressed it. How can a vaccine be politicized? Unfortunately, it can happen because HPV is a sexually transmitted virus and causes cervical cancer in women. And in unvaccinated societies, unfortunately, about 80% of women encounter the HPV virus at least once in their lives. Therefore, we are talking about a very common virus in society.

According to figures announced by experts, approximately 1,250 women in our country lose their lives every year due to HPV-related cervical cancer. Yet, there is a vaccine for this; it is a preventable type of cancer, it can be prevented with a vaccine. It is not just those who lose their lives to cancer; there are many people who experience many ailments, including pre-cancerous lesions. It is a virus with the prevalence I just mentioned. And before we started such a struggle, HPV was not well known, its relationship with cervical cancer was not well known, and the fact that the vaccine exists and that this is actually our inherent right to health were not well known."

‘I WAS READING EMAILS WITH TEARS IN MY EYES’

The vaccine actually received its patent in 2006 and started to be produced. When we scanned that period, unfortunately, some bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health of the time in our country—people who should have been protecting our health—were able to make statements like 'I trust my daughter' regarding this vaccine. These were actually very reactionary statements containing commentary, and they were statements that cast suspicion on people. We thought there was a need for a cleanup in this area, and the work we did actually created tremendous awareness. Four years ago, while I was working as a pharmacist in the Zile district of Tokat, I was on duty at the pharmacy on June 3, the death anniversary of our famous poet Nâzım Hikmet. I was reading Nâzım's poems while on duty that day, and I came across one of his poems; it actually pushed me toward something like this. In that poem, it said, 'We are human, thank goodness, thank goodness we know how to add hope to our medicine, one must live by resisting and insisting, my sick brothers and sisters, you will get better.'

During that period, the pandemic period, people were already dealing with Covid vaccines, etc., there were many agendas, many of our colleagues were losing their lives; it was a very strange period, frankly. While I was thinking at the pharmacy that night about how to add hope to medicine, HPV vaccines came to my mind. I knew about them, and I used to wonder why the state didn't cover them when they first came out. That night, I thought of something like an HPV vaccine solidarity scholarship, where I would cover the HPV vaccines of a young woman with the income from my future shifts. I had created a form and shared it on Twitter. Then a large number of emails arrived; we realized the next day that we had touched a bleeding wound. Many women's stories came in. I was reading emails until four in the morning with tears in my eyes, seeing what people were going through.

‘IT IS NOT EASY TO KEEP A TOPIC ON THE AGENDA FOR 3-4 YEARS’

Then we have an initiative consisting of pharmacists called 'Unbowed Medicine Workers' (Boyun Eğmeyen İlaç Emekçileri) that prioritizes public health. I spoke with our friend Buğra in the morning about what we should do, as something like this had happened. He had said this: 'Let's turn this into a struggle for the HPV vaccine to be free; let's do things that will attract attention with such a vaccine scholarship, in a way that takes a position against pharmaceutical monopolies independent of everyone, and in a way that will increase the state's responsibility.'

Then, with our own colleagues and the people who supported us on Twitter, we provided 1,000 doses of free vaccines in a short time. Nobody knew about this vaccine at that time; a certain number of people didn't know, and we shared a photo of every dose of the vaccine on our accounts, and we wrote a statement on each of them to show this awareness. We actually wrote texts covering 1,000 different topics in different places, and tremendous awareness was created. It also fell onto the media's agenda; a lot of news was made about it. It stayed on the agenda for a very long time; in a country like Turkey where the agenda is constantly changing, it is not easy to keep a topic on the agenda for 3-4 years.

A short time later, we met with lawyer friends from the 'Children and Women First Association' (Önce Çocuklar ve Kadınlar Derneği), and they also volunteer for femicide cases. We were saying that this issue was actually femicide committed through reactionary health policies.

We gave presentations in many places—universities, neighborhoods, villages, workshops—to workers; I have given over 200 presentations to date, whoever invited us where. Here, we constantly explained the scientific aspects of these, cervical cancer, HPV, the results, and the vaccine. We explained why it should be free and why we shouldn't have to buy it with our own money. Yes, awareness is important; some people have money and can reach it thanks to awareness, but especially in the presentations we gave at universities or working-class neighborhoods, we were constantly saying this: 'Yes, you are all very aware right now, but go ahead and pay 12,000 [TL] with today's money and get 3 doses of the vaccine; you can't.' So there was something else here; this also had a class character, and we had started this struggle especially for the children of laborers and the poor, for students, because they couldn't reach it and would therefore face cancer risk in later years."

What was the role of the 'Unbowed Medicine Workers' and the 'Children and Women First Association' in this process? Can you describe how it started and grew as a pioneer of this process?

"We shared this issue with the Children and Women First Association because in the country, about four times as many people were losing their lives to cervical cancer as the number of femicides known and announced every year, and this was preventable. And due to some reactionary perspectives I mentioned earlier, especially the social pressure placed on women, expressions were voiced suggesting that the reason for this was things like polygamy. However, we had found a slogan for ourselves at that time: 'It is not love that kills, but those who do not vaccinate us at age 9.' And we knew from scientific studies that when HPV-positive individuals have loss of self-respect, depression, anxiety, sexual problems, etc., they would turn their anger toward themselves. We followed a struggle by organizing that anger through this social pressure and ensuring that the anger went where it deserved to go."

What did it mean for the HPV vaccine to be restricted by criteria such as 'marital status'? How do such annotations affect public health?

"We filed lawsuits against social security institutions, and we won these cases. All of these were also public opinion-building, public enlightenment, and awareness-raising activities.

Women's solidarity committees contributed a lot; through them, we went to neighborhoods and villages, and we provided guidance on activities there, mass vaccinations, participating in screenings that were not well known, benefiting from certain services of the state, and demanding them.

Then the Ministry of Health had to make a promise, and the former Minister of Health, Fahrettin Koca, said at first that they were not against these vaccines and that they would do them themselves. At that time, this statement of his received a lot of reaction because, on the one hand, he had placed an annotation such as marital status and certain age criteria. Then we made a statement against this, saying it was scientifically absurd. That statement changed; it was said that we would do it for those over 18. Then we explained with examples that this also had no scientific meaning, that these vaccines provide benefit to society when administered before sexual life is active, and that it is applied this way in the world as well.

Then a step back was taken from this as well. In the last statement made by Fahrettin Koca, he had said, 'We are researching the practices in the world, we will do it according to them,' but he left his post before he could keep the promise he made during his own ministry. The new minister came, and these questions were asked to him directly as well.

In a statement he made yesterday on TRT Haber, this time, without even being asked, he defined this as 'good news' and stated for the first time that children over the age of 13 would be included in the vaccination program.

And for the first time, a date was given because it was vague when this would be done. He gave it as good news, saying it would start at the end of the year. This is important in the sense that a date was given for the first time, and when you consider the perspective on the vaccine when it first started—from a place of 'I trust my daughter,' 'There is no need for such a vaccine in Turkey'—it has now turned into something that the minister himself announced as good news.

It was actually a tremendous achievement; it was a tremendous work that started spontaneously on a night on duty, then turned into a collective struggle, and to which many institutions and people contributed. We were also thinking, 'Let's wage such a struggle that when this ends one day, we can say: Look, everyone can have all kinds of power, but if a people organize and show solidarity for their own legitimate interests, they can win.' We wanted to be able to say that."

Is it possible for the HPV vaccine to be administered to everyone and free of charge?

"Of course, Minister Memişoğlu's statement is a very short statement. But the statement says 'over 13 years old.' Generally, these vaccines can be administered over the age of 9 worldwide. It is done in many countries. We are in a very backward situation in this regard. It can be done for free in European Union countries, it is done in the USA, it is done in Mozambique, and it is done in Myanmar. We know that it is one of the 'school attendance requirements' in the United Arab Emirates. So it is done everywhere in the world. Actually, we were explaining this in our presentations as well. This is something we are very late for and can be implemented in a short time with the right vaccination program. In terms of age, reasonable ages were mentioned according to the initial statements. But it is still a vague statement. We are currently waiting for the Ministry of Health to share photos of children receiving the vaccine. Let that day come first, and we will continue to talk about the rest."