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January was Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, and a group of legislators led by Lt. Gov. Bill Halter and state Rep. Wilhelmina Lewellen held a press conference on the state capitol rotunda in mid-January.

In Arkansas, cervical cancer has been deadly. The state ranked fourth nationally in mortality, but Lewellen pushed through in 2005 an act that led to the creation of the Arkansas Cervical Cancer Task Force.

The group's goal, according to Lewellen, is to educate Arkansans on the dangers of cervical cancer and the importance of early detection. When diagnosed early, cervical cancer has a five-year survival rate of 92 percent. Halter spoke of the goal at the press conference, "We can look to this day as the beginning of the end."

Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, who works for the Division of Health, added that another goal was to inform the public about human papillomavirus, more commonly known as HPV, and its role in cervical cancer.

Some controversy has swirled around HPV and the vaccination that can be given to women and female children (as young as nine years old), but Dillaha emphasized the importance of the vaccination.

"It can protect against four types of HPV," she said. "Those types combine to cause about 70 percent of the diagnosed cervical cancer cases."

March 2007

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