Throat Cancer Foundation have submitted an Early Day Motion to the House of Commons and have encouraged our supporters to write to their Westminister MPs to raise awareness of this issue. The motion was sponsored by John Robertson MP of the Labour Party. The Early Day Motion has now got 58 signatories with support coming from across the political spectrum.Our charity is, however, registered in Scotland and we wish to highlight this issue in Scotland, not just the UK.
We attended an event called Broader Burden of Human Papillomavirus in the Scottish Parliament on 15th January 2013. This event was organised by Sanofi Pastuer MSD and was attended by Nanette Milne MSP and Patrick Harvie MSP as well as Scotland's head of Human Papillomavirus research Dr Kate Cuschieri . The seminar had two presentations by Dr Martin Donaghy, Medical Director Health Protection Scotland and Dr Ned Powell Senior Lecturer Human Papillomavirus Oncology Group Institute of Cancer and Genetics School of Medicines, University of Cardiff. After this event a parliamentary motion was lodged by Nanette Milne MSP.
In addtion have sought the counsel and gathered the support of 150 medical/public health experts who support our petition statement. They include some world leaders of oncology, epidemiology and other related fields.
We have held informal meetings with Dr Martin Donaghy, Medical Officer for Health Protection Scotland, Professor Heather Cubie, recently retired Director, Scottish HPV Reference Laboratory, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Honorary Professor of Research and Research Management, University of Edinburgh and have engaged with public health bodies in Scotland, these are: NHS Tayside;Dental Public Health and NHS Greater Glasgow. These meetings have been fact finding missions and informal with staff members from a number of different disciplines:medical research, cancer care, dentistry, public health policy and surgery, not to lobby for support of this petition.
We have held informal meetings with two MSP's which have been to raise awareness of the issue and not to lobby for this petition to be signed. We met Alex Neil MSP on the 4th February 2013 and Angus McDonlald MSP on the 18th of February 2013. We have a further meeting with Alex Neil arranged for later this year (date to be confirmed) to discuss the issue of gender nuetral vaccination and this petition.
We have sought media coverage for this issue Scotland and UK wide. This has been in the printed press, on-line media, television media and radio. The focus of the media attention was on the Early Day Motion signed by over 50 MP's and the 150 leading medical experts who have signed this petition statement.