For the first time ever, no young women in England died of cervical cancer. In the U.S., RFK Jr.'s vaccine skepticism stalls HPV progress

Doctor giving patient injection in volunteer clinic (Credit: Getty Stock)

For the first time since records have been kept, a five-year stretch passed in England without a single young woman dying of cervical cancer. Between 2020 and 2024, not one woman ages 20 to 24 died of the disease—a cohort that, absent vaccination, would have been expected to lose roughly 23 of its members to it.

The finding comes from a landmark study published June 17 in The Lancet by Queen Mary University of London professors Peter Sasieni and Milena Falcaro. Both spent two decades building the evidentiary chain: HPV causes cervical cancer; vaccination stops the infection; vaccination should, eventually, stop the dying.