20 March 2016 - Throat-cancer patient Grant Munro paid for his son to be vaccinated against the sexually-transmitted HPV virus because the Government has refused.

A 58-year-old scientific expert on viruses, he is backing a campaign by doctors calling for the extension of state funding of the controversial HPV vaccine to boys. Dr Munro, whose cancer was linked to HPV infection, says it is a form of discrimination against males that the Government will only pay for girls to have the vaccine.

State medicines agency Pharmac said it had decided not to fund the Gardasil vaccine for boys at present, but it is an option for the future. Its advisory committee assigned a low priority to funding it for all males aged 11-19 and high priority for males 9-26 "who self-identify as having sex with other males".

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