A close relative of mine was monogamous. Her husband wasn’t, but swore he was. She gets to live with HPV for the rest of her life now too. She’s divorced, and rather bitter about the whole thing, and I can’t blame her.
Great minds think alike! I was just reading this site.
Hopefully, there will be results soon. If a vaccine works for both genders, maybe HVP would go the way of small pox in a decade or two.
That’s one way to think of it. But that isn’t why the recommendation is for the vaccination to happen in the early teen years.
It’s a much more logical, basic, pragmatic calculation, that sounds like this:
Most women will have sex at some time during their lives. This puts them at risk for HPV.
When you look at the bell curve of what age women are when they start having sex, the average is 17-18.
If you mandate vaccination in the early teenage years, then you will probably manage to give it to most women before they first become at risk.
Value judgments don’t come into it, other than “preventing the most cancers = good.”
Maybe, maybe not; I’m not qualified to judge on that beyond commenting there’s strong evidence that there may be an autoimmune component in some cases (my autistic nephew was on strong doses of steroids, which did improved his symptoms). Hence my own personal wish to be cautious with anything that could affect the immune system. I’m no luddite: the kids have had the usual childhood vaccines, just on a slightly slower schedule than the standard one. /hijack.
It’s irresponsible to have unprotected sex because of STDs (and unwanted pregnancies). If we could actually can prevent all the negative side effects of having unprotected sex, doesn’t it cease to be an irresponsible decision?
I’m pro-vaccination and I support this as a mandated vaccination, with the possible caveat that it might be better to wait a few years until we can see what the long term effects are in people who have voluntarily been vaccinated.
I wish they had had this vaccine ten years ago, when my daughter became sexually active. She contracted HPV, has had several abnormal PAPs and a LEEP procedure. Her last few PAPs have been clear, thank God, but she’s way too young to be having to worry about cervical cancer. My nieces, who will turn 16 next month, are nothing at all like my daughter, but I’m still going to urge my sister-in-law to get them vaccinated now, before they need to worry about this.
I think the vaccine is a good idea. I just don’t think it’s been around long enough for anybody to be required to have it. I know that parents are allowed to opt out for their daughters, but I’d bet a lot of schools won’t really make it sound that way, or there will be some pretty heavy pressure not to take that option.
And it worries me some that if this happens in this case, it will soon become a requirement in other places, maybe before there is enough field experience with it.
I wasn’t trying to offend anyone. And I do sincerely apologize if I did. I was fishing for opinions so that I consider all things, since I was simply saying I DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT. And then I listed some of the things I thought about, not that I necessarily believe whole-heartedly. I did not in any way mean to imply that the only people who get STDs are those who are promiscuous or have irresposible/unprotected sexual experiences. (But I don’t think that anybody can really deny that high risk sexual behavior increases your risk of STDs or other consequences). Other than that I am not completely convinced that it is 100% safe for mass distribution, I think the vaccine itself is a great idea. If I had a daughter I wouldn’t have a problem with her getting it. If I was still a young single woman, I’d get it. But like amarinth, having it mandated rubs me the wrong way. The first article I read on it, which I can’t find anymore, didn’t mention that parents could opt-out, so that is definitely a big difference. Other states like Maryland and West Virginia who are considering similar rules haven’t mentioned whether it would be optional or not.
I do not have a puritanical view of sex. I will do it with whoever I want, wherever I want to do it, however I want to do it, but it is my own responsibility to make sure that I protect my own health. The government, or in this case the school board, doesn’t need to make those decisions for me.
Just clearing up a point that I didn’t make clearly in my original post. By public health I wasn’t referring to casual spread of the disease. I’m aware of the mechanics. But the testing and treatment related to HPV and cervical cancer is either raising everyone’s insurance premiums or being paid by taxpayers through Medicaid. Very few people pay their own healthcare out of pocket. If we can prevent that expense, we as the general public benefit.
Also, regarding the boys. My understanding is the efficacy has only been tested on women. There is a clearer rationale to provide it to women, since they are the ones who get cancer. From what I’ve read, there is no medical reason the vaccine wouldn’t be expected to work on men, but the necessary testing hasn’t been done for FDA approval.
I hope they do test it for and provide it to men. I think the male population that does not get tested for, develop symptoms of, or suffer life threatening consequences of a disease just might be more casual about spreading it. If it can be prevented in men that might have more impact than is immediately obvious.
I honestly believe most people on this board have the sense to protect their own health, and that of their loved ones. (And you didn’t offend me. 
)
However, I live in the Deep South, as in the Bible Belt. From the hoopla when this vaccine came out you would think the government was advocating selling pre-pubescent girls into sexual slavery. It is being equated with birth control, as in “good girls shouldn’t need it. My girl is going to be a good girl (or I will lock her in her room until she’s 40 or beat her to death) therefore she does not need it. It is only needed by sinful girls.” These people don’t consider that their daughter might remain chaste until marriage and still catch this disease from her husband. Or that she might be raped. They only consider that it might remove one of the fears they use to keep their children sexually ignorant.
I think the government interferes in our lives too much as it is. However, once the long term effects of this vaccine have been discovered I think it should be mandatory, just to protect the daughters of parents such as the ones mentioned above.
There is no test for HPV in males. Most males that have HPV have no symptoms at all, or they may develop genital warts. In very rare cases it can cause penile or anal cancer, but there are only about 3000 cases of either of those in the US per year. The CDC even says there is no clear benefit to even knowing they have it or for getting it treated (if there were a treatment) since it almost never affects your health and any effects usually go away on their own.
And, of course, why would the parents need to share the nature of the vaccine with their daughters in the first place? My niece just had it. She’s 10. She was told that she needed to get a shot. She got the shot. She doesn’t know what it’s for. When I was a kid, my mom took care of all that stuff. She just took me to the doc and I did what she told me.
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t discuss this with your daughters. In truth, I’m sure that my niece will be told the true nature of this shot when it’s age appropriate, like in 2-3 years.
But if you think this will turn your daughter into a slut, then don’t tell her what it’s for.
My daughters are 17 and 13, and both are still virgins. I’m holding my breath waiting for this vaccine to be mandated in my state, because then my insurance will pay for it. Our family pays $800 a month for health insurance; if I chose to get both kids vaccinated today, I’d have to find $720 extra to pay for it out of pocket. Our state provides free vaccines under the VFC program, but this one is being provided only to 11-year-olds right now.
Neither of my kids looks likely to start having sex any time soon, but things change in the blink of an eye when you’re a teenager. I’ve told them that they’ll need to give me six months’ warning if they decide to have sex, so we can get them the vaccination in time (which elicited some very satisfactory exclamations of disgust, but I know that attitude won’t last forever).
In my state, the governor struck down a bill to make this vaccine mandatory. He did, however, sign a bill requiring health insurance policies to cover the cost of the vaccination and to fund a vaccination program through Public Health. I got the shot for my daughter as soon as it became available.
That being said, please keep in mind that the biggest force behind making this a mandatory vaccination for school entry is the pharmaceutical company, Merck, that stands to make billions of dollars on such laws around the country. They succeeded in Texas. If you think this sounds paranoid, check the campaign donations Merck has made to the governor of Texas. Oh, and by the way, the successful Merck lobbyist in Texas used to be the governor’s chief of staff.
There are more than two sides to this debate; it isn’t just reasonable scientists and educated folks against ignorant religious right types. There is a powerful profit motive here by the pharmaceutical companies. They spend thousands of times more dollars on marketing their products, giving perks to your medical providers to influence their prescribing practices and lobbying and funding political campaigns than they spend for research and QA of their products. This is why so many prescription drugs are so expensive and hence, often out of reach of the developing world.
Anal cancers caused by HPV are not that uncommon in gay men. And all men, straight or gay, can get the strains of HPV that cause external warts (that are not cancerous, but cause other problems). Even if problems caused by HPV didn’t exist for males, it would make sense to make the vaccination available to both sexes to provide the herd immunity that would lessen the chances that females would be exposed to it.
Did we ever get a clear answer as to whether or not boys *can *be immunized? Not that I’m worried about the nearly infinitesimal chances of penile cancer, but it’d be nice if my son didn’t become a carrier and unwittingly infect women - especially since the disease is so silent in men.
The vaccination is not being offered to males at this point. There will probably need to be trials to show efficacy before it is approved for males. Penile cancer is pretty rare, but the external warts caused by the non-cancer-causing strains are unsightly, uncomfortable and communicable, too.