Huntsman donates $1 million to prevent cervical cancer

State health efforts to educate women about a cancer-causing virus and provide low-cost vaccines to those who can't afford them got a boost this week from a local philanthropist.

The $1 million donation from industrialist Jon M. Huntsman Sr. and his wife Karen comes after state lawmakers declined this year to pass proposed legislation to fund an education and vaccination campaign for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), the leading cause of cervical cancer.

The Utah Department of Health will use the money to launch an awareness campaign and provide vaccines for low-income and uninsured women.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a sticking point for conservative Utah lawmakers. In a letter to health department executive director Dr. David N. Sundwall, however, Huntsman appeared to dismiss such concerns.

"My quest in life and my pledge in death ... is to assist in the eradication of cancer in all its ugly mannerisms, irrespective of cause," wrote the founder of the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Huntsman continued to express hope that, through education and vaccination, "the lives of sisters and daughters, wives and mothers throughout Utah may be saved."

The CDC estimates at least half of sexually active people will get HPV at some point. An estimated 70 percent of cervical cancers are directly linked to HPV, which can also cause other cancers of the genital tract and genital warts in both men and women, as well as infertility.

HPV can be contracted through skin-to-skin contact and does not require intercourse to be spread, according to Kalynn Filion of the health department's cancer program. It is most common in young men and women in their late teens and early 20s.

Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, sponsored legislation this year that would have appropriated $1 million for education and to increase availability of the HPV vaccine. Lawmakers, who gave the Huntsman Cancer Institute $14 million, ultimately provided $25,000 for an education campaign stressing abstinence as the best prevention. It provided no funding for vaccinations.

Morgan hailed Huntsman's donation as an important step in protecting Utah women and their families. However, she said, it is unfortunate that private money was necessary to do what lawmakers would not.