Assistance please - why Sex not Gender on Immunisation Form?

but merry why do they need to be polite? Should they use winkle instead of penis?

The HPV vaccine being rolled out to boys was mentioned when Gardasil was launched way back (2005/6 ish IIRC) pretty much for the same reason that Rubella was given to boys as part of MMR - the objective is to reduce the circulating virus. So with Rubella, boys would not be able to pass it onto unvaccinated pregnant women. With HPV my memory isn't great on the specific types, but i think 2 were resonsible for cervical cell changes and the others genital / anal warts in general, which of course males are just as vulnerable to.

Hi all, I contacted Virgin Healthcare to ask why they use Gender instead of Sex

I suspect that in most cases they are using 'gender' as a 'polite' way of saying 'sex'.

Because in medicine, biology matters. Not how you feel or dress.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials

I'd be inclined to point out that recording gender means they are capturing unnecessary data which is against GDPR because only sex is medically relevant for immunisations so that adverse affects can be compared by sex

The yellow card pharmacovigilance reporting system uses sex therefore to be able to fully report an adverse reaction to the vaccine they would have to provide the sex of the patient (although yellow cards can be sent with minimal information too)

HPV was the only one I could think of currently (is it being rolled out to boys nationally, do you know, giggling? ) Back in the mists of pre-history when I were a lass, only girls got the rubella jab, but it's now part of the standard baby immunisation programme.

Just crossed out gender and written sex on the flu vax form here too.

Are ther still any sex spesific vaccines as part of the standard set? Rubella is now part of the MMR, so given to both sexes. HPV was the other which was just the girls when DD had hers, but that's been brought in for boys now as well. DS was due to have his at school this year, but cancelled due to lockdown.

I was going to say that only girls get the HPV vaccine, but I see that's now given to boys as well. I don't know of any other sex based differences, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some. What possible use is knowing someone's gender identity?

I just came on here to ask about this - we have a e-consent form where options are gender -male, female, prefer not to say. No paper form and I cant easily see where to contact them to say how irrelevant a question that is.

Do pursue this. I scratched out ‘gender’ and replaced it with ‘sex’ on my kid’s flu vaccination form last year. This year they have reverted to ‘sex, and even better, they have replaced the blank box with 3 options - male, female, do not wish to answer. Of course, I’m taking full credit for that!

This is quite an interesting subject actually IMO

'Females typically develop higher antibody responses and experience more adverse reactions following vaccination than males.'

from

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25573105/

Interesting point. Research has found that 'males tend to have higher antibody titers to both tetanus and diphtheria than females' so at least with that vaccine it matters a bit... Although the research below is in the elderly and I think changing genders perhaps less common in much older people than now?

link www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4630198/