Family's plea for girls to get cancer vaccine

Oct 5 2010 By Lawrence Poole

Jen Goodridge died of cancer just eight months after getting married

A MOTHER from Amersham has appealed to the Bucks Examiner to fulfil her late daughter's last wish – to help prevent more young woman dying from cervical cancer.

Judy Sidebottom wrote to us after reading about NHS Buckinghamshire medical director Dr Geoff Payne's campaign to encourage the parents of 12 and 13-year-old schoolgirls to give consent so their daughters can have the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine injection, which helps prevent two kinds of the cancer.

The article appeared in our paper the same day as her 24-year-old daughter Jen Goodridge's funeral – just eight months after she got married.

Judy is now offering, along with her daughter's widowed husband Tony Goodridge and son David, to go into schools and youth groups across the region to raise awareness about the vaccine which protects against the two types of HPV which cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers.

The profile of the cancer has risen since Big Brother contestant Jade Goody died from it in March 2009 and in Buckinghamshire there are over 20 new cases of cervical cancer identified each year, about five to 10 women die from the disease.

The vaccine is administered in three doses over a period of about six months. NHS Buckinghamshire is urging girls to take up the offer of this life-saving vaccine.

Jen, a vivacious, outgoing and healthy graphic design graduate who travelled all over Europe with her mum visiting galleries, was originally diagnosed with the cancer in August 2008 and just over two years later she lost her battle with the disease.

Her family are obviously devastated by the loss but are determined to try and make sure as few as families as possible have to go through the torment and heartache they did.

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