The recent vote by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to extend routine HPV vaccination to boys and young men is a victory for our children. Adolescents immunized today will be protected from a range of cancers that would otherwise start appearing in their 30s, 40s, 50s and so on.
Putting politics and personal notions about appropriate sexual behavior aside leaves me with this fact: HPV vaccine is a safe and effective way to prevent cancer. How can anyone be against that?
Forget what you know about HPV for a minute and ask yourself how you would feel about a vaccine that could prevent seven out of every 10 cases of breast cancer -- it works best when it's given to girls at 11 or 12 because that's when they get the best immune response. Would you be against it? Would anyone?
Perhaps this is even a better example: What if the vaccine could stop most lung cancers, but only if kids get it before they try even one cigarette? Because one might be all it takes to damage your child's lung tissue and start a process that could lead to lung cancer. You don't think your kid will ever smoke? Consider this: Every day, about 4,000 American adolescents 12 and 17 years old try their first cigarette. Should a child who makes one bad choice -- tries that one cigarette -- pay the ultimate price decades later when we had the means to protect him?
Don't assume I don't understand the challenge for parents here. I understand completely that 11 or 12 is a tender age and that we have a hard time applying this concept to the HPV vaccine. But really, it's no different than for any other vaccine. You need to get the measles, mumps or polio vaccine before you are exposed to those viruses or they will not work.
Adolescents need to complete the HPV vaccination series before they initiate their sex lives. I'm a father; I understand that we'd like to think that it won't happen until around age 34, particularly for our daughters. We need to get past that.
The HPV vaccine prevents cancer. I keep saying that because it excites me tremendously that we can prevent cancer with vaccines. It should be every parent's mantra, "I can protect my child from cancer. I can protect my child from cancer."
Now please go protect your girls and boys against this virus. You'll be helping them avoid cervical, penile, anal, vulva and vaginal cancer as well as oral, throat and maybe skin cancer, too.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111510143426797.html
Turns out that living in Mississippi is another risk factor for this disease.
Human papillomavirus is found in the placenta, umbilical cord blood and in infants.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18972230
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=24939
This means that many young girls already have HPV infection and that when they get Gardasil the increase in risk of cervical cancer is over 44 percent, according to Merck's own studies.
Conclusion: Gardasil may increase the risk of cervical cancer.
The primary route of infection in 99% of people is sexual intercourse or oral/genital contact.
Gardasil does not increase the risk of cancer.
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/briefing/2006-4222B3.pdf
You know you are being suckered when instead of being presented facts you are asked nonsense rhetorical questions. Classic manipulation technique.
It could wear off. No long-term data yet.
The HPV strains could change. This has happened with the Hib vaccine and with Prevnar.
Or it could be that HPV is not the only factor leading to cancer, that it is a co-morbid factor rather than a determining factor.
See, I can speculate too!
Unlike yours.
Do you know that the Hib vaccine protects against a bacterial infection, and that HPV is a virus?
Do you know the difference?
Do you know why Haemophilus influenza b can mutate relatively rapidly whereas HPV cannot?
Do you know that infection with an oncogenic HPV is the primary cause of cervical cancer, and that without such an infection there will be no cervical cancer?
See, you look stupid when you speculate in the absence of actual knowledge.
As far as a certain mindset goes, anything that reduces the fear of catching a sexually transmitted disease, actually prmotes promiscuous sex, because that fear may be what prevents some people from becoming sexually active.
Never underestimate how many people really believe or how much they really believe... and if you value your own beliefs, do not make light of theirs. The sincerity is real.