HPV: No longer just a problem for women
Interspersed within these pages which contain my own musings about life and the world around me; my own idiosyncratic routine as it were… are a few scattered pieces about issues that I’m deeply passionate about. They’re primarily women’s issues, but on occasion I’ve written about non-gender specific topics such as the need to live green, and certain topics of sexuality which appeal to both sexes, but when I first started writing about and discussing human papilloma virus (HPV) a couple of months ago, it was when states like Texas and Virginia were attempting to enact legislation which would mandate Gardasil vaccinations for all girls entering the sixth grade, and the logic behind that was to vaccinate girls before they became sexually active. This was a women’s issue. Merck marketed Gardasil and HPV as a women’s issue with their Tell Someone campaign, but now that we’ve raised awareness about HPV with extensive media coverage about various states’ efforts to mandate Gardasil vaccinations and with a lot of medical evidence being made available to the public, it turns out that this isn’t just a women’s issue after all.
Over the last couple of months since I first started beating the drums about the need for women to get tested and vaccinated for HPV, several friends have emailed me articles (thank you Kim!) and snippets of valuable information about HPV as well as thanking me and encouraging me to continue writing about this topic. When I wrote my entry HPV Facts a couple of months ago, at the time that was everything I knew about HPV. Now apparently men have as much to be concerned about, and HPV and the related cancers it can cause are no longer only problems for women.
So let’s update the facts:
HPV (human papilloma virus) is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. More than half of all people in the world will be exposed to any one of 80 strains of the HPV virus. HPV-16 causes most cervical cancers, close to 10,000 cases a year in the United States alone, claiming nearly 3,700 women’s lives in this country annually. But HPV-16 has also been linked to oral, throat, penile and anal cancers in men. About 9,800 men in the United States are afflicted with any one of these cancers each year, and now there’s talk of testing the effectiveness of the Gardasil vaccine on boys.
(For more comprehensive information please see this entry.)
A great article sent to me by JW reported on the New England Journal of Medicine’s study which linked HPV related infections and cancer to oral sex.
The study, which appears in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. These findings dwarf the increased risk of developing this so-called oropharyngeal cancer associated with the two major risk factors: smoking (3 times greater) or drinking (2.5 times greater). HPV infection drives cancerous growth, as it is widely understood to do in the cervix. But unlike cervical cancer, this type of oral cancer is more prevalent in men.
Here’s a link to another article which was offered by lunarowlar. It’s a bit humorous from a man’s perspective, but the information is just as valid.
I’m left wondering if our elected officials will now move quickly to mandate vaccinations because this affects men too. Please excuse my cynicism, but it’s often been said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. On the political front, Texas attempted to mandate Gardasil vaccinations and those efforts were struck down by the state legislature, and so far, Virginia is the only state to make mandatory vaccinations a reality, but by contrast, in New Hampshire, they can’t keep up with the demand. Right now New Hampshire provides Gardasil at no cost to girls aged 11 to 18, and the reason many experts cite for the high demand is because of an awareness campaign, not mandatory legislation. (link)
I’ve gone back and forth on the whole mandatory aspect of Gardasil vaccinations, and for the most part, I support the idea as long as parents do have the right to option their children out of the program, for either medical or some religious reasons. Even tho I cannot accept or endorse the religious reasons because there is nothing to suggest that vaccinating our daughters against HPV encourages them to be more sexually active, I do try and respect other people’s beliefs, but from a public health standpoint, we could literally wipe out certain types of cancer that are caused by HPV with these vaccinations.
So now we know that this isn’t just a women’s issue. It should be interesting to see how government and society responds to this. Will the same evangelical theocrats object to having their son’s vaccinated because a boy being sexually active is more palatable to them than the idea of their daughters having sex? Or are we witnessing yet another example of how our sexuality is viewed as something dirty and wrong, and a male’s sexuality is perceived as something normal and expected? Either way… now we’re on a level playing field. HPV is as much a danger to men as it is to women.
Tell Someone.
For more information on Women’s Health and HPV, see this WebMD entry.
1Richard
wrote on 19 May 2007 at 18:20
I ain’t got it yet, and I have had oral sex fom one end of this planet to the other,( by the way always male to female). Oh my god, I’m kidding Nina, but WTF how bad is it? I guess it is toooooo late for me. Richard
2nina aoki
wrote on 19 May 2007 at 20:59
Richard,
lol! Oh I’m sure you have sweetie! Tho, we used to think of HPV as just something women had to worry about. In the big picture, cancer from HPV isn’t the same as breast cancer or lung cancer, but it’s still serious, and there’s a way to prevent it, with condoms, barriers and vaccines.
Thanks sweetie,
xoxo,
nina
3tiffany
wrote on 19 May 2007 at 23:16
I’ve been reading your site just recently and have found a lot of your articles to be very insightful. When I ran across this, it brought back some questions I had about the HPV virus. My doctor educated me on it but wasn’t sure if I should be vaccinated or not since I’m 26. So, what does age have to do with this virus? Do they only give Gardasil to specific age groups?
~tiffany
4J
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 3:04
Tiffany, the age issue is being approached from the public health perspective; in other words, from a scientific point of view, it makes sense to vaccinate all women (at least) before they become sexually active, since that is how this virus is transmitted. The consensus is that sixth grade is early enough to be effective, since most girls are not going to be sexually active before that time.
Whether you should be vaccinated or not at 26 is a question your doctor should be able to answer for you, and if he or she cannot, you might consider visiting you local Planned Parenthood clinic or a different healthcare provider.
It really could be a matter of life or death.
Nina, thanks for giving your attention to this issue. Some in this country have sought to potray this vaccine as encouraging sexual activity in young women. The reality is, of course, somewhat different from what the religious right would have us believe. Sexuality is not the province of the devil, nor is it somehow an avoidable aspect of human development. It is what it is. This vaccine appears to offer protection against a devastating cancer. What more is there to say?
Now, if only we could come up with a vaccine that would prevent ignorance and religious zealotry, we’d be in pretty good shape.
-John
5J
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 3:14
As for respecting people’s rights; I agree wholeheartedly with the impulse, Nina, but it is time to face reality. We already allow parents to expose their children to religion; that does harm enough. Let’s not continue to use religion as an excuse for neglect, especially as it pertains to communicable diseases.
The Dark Ages are over. Aren’t they?
-John
6sleive
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 9:24
Sweet. New Hampshire represent! My school was responsible for a lot of the early testings of the HPV vaccine (used to see those wanna-be-a-guinea-pig? signs everywhere.)
It doesn’t surprise me that there is such high demand there. Even at school there have been events to raise awareness and give out the shot to college women.
So when my doctor mentioned it was out of it’s testing stage, and covered by insurance, I got it.
Well, the first of the three, anyway. I’ll have to wait till I’m back in the states to get the other two.
I remember learning about HPV in my high school health classes…it always seemed so much less important then than it does now. Thanks for the awareness, nina!
7musns
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 11:32
What comes to my mind is this: When you donate blood at Red Cross, one of the signifying factors as to whether or not they will pitch it, is if you are in a monogamous relationship. If you are, would it still be necessary to get the HPV vaccination?
My immediate reaction, is I’m in a monogamous relationship, I trust that my husband is also and where is the need to be vaccinated?
8nina aoki
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 15:30
tiffany,
Thank you for the lovely compliment and thank you for your question, and welcome to geishaland!
I’d like to stress that I present these things for information purposes only in an effort to raise awareness, and sites like mine or any other on the net aren’t a substitute for advice from a healthcare professional such as your own doctor.
The idea behind giving the Gardasil vaccine to women younger than yourself and in the target group of 11-18, is to inoculate and protect women before they become sexually active. The thought is to protect girls before they’re exposed to HPV, which is where the vaccine is most effective, but your age group is still a great target for the vaccine. Other than that, age plays no role in whether or not you should get vaccinated. Gardasil can be given to women of any age group, but again, whether or not you should get vaccinated is really a conversation you should have with your doctor… but at your age, if it were me, I would absolutely get the treatment without question. I assume that you’re sexually active, so in my opinion getting vaccinated is a smart choice.
Here’s something else to think about; safer sex practices like condoms offer some, but truthfully very little protection from HPV because of how contagious the virus is. You can become exposed to HPV from simply touching the genitals of an infected person, or from oral sex, or from any number of intimate activities, so being vaccinated really becomes the only defense against exposure. Also too, there are over 80 strains of the virus, and not all of them cause cancer, some strains cause things like genital warts!
Just so you know what to expect, Gardasil is given in three separate shots over three or four months, and the shots are covered by most health insurance plans, and depending on which part of the country you live in, it could be offered free of charge.
Good luck and thanks for your comment and I hope you pursue this conversation with your doctor.
xoxo,
nina
9nina aoki
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 16:02
John,
Thank you for your input on this issue and for your comments.
It is a complete fallacy for anyone to suggest that vaccinating girls against HPV in any way encourages them to become sexually active, or as some have argued, gives girls a false sense of security. Both of those positions are completely and totally erroneous and dangerously ignorant.
I know that many on the right, particularly the religious right, would like to believe that their daughters (and sons) aren’t going to have sex until marriage, and that too is dangerously ignorant, especially considering how contagious HPV is, and that intercourse isn’t required to become infected.
Unfortunately the ‘abstinence only’ message has permeated some aspects of our culture, sadly with the help of the current republican administration, but such ideas are in complete contravention of human nature. I have no problem if an individual chooses on their own to abstain from sex until marriage, but I find it incredulous that a parent would bury their head in the sand and try and impose a religious viewpoint on their child by insisting the child subscribe to that abstinence message or as we’ve seen in some schools, forcing their kids into signing things like ‘virginity contracts’. This quite frankly is so damaging to an individual’s sexual awareness and identity, especially young women who will forever believe that their sexuality is something wrong and dirty because of this. These parents are doing more damage to their children by refusing to acknowledge that sex and sexuality are part of who we are as human beings, and these are the same parents who refuse to provide potentially life saving medical treatments to their daughters because of those religious beliefs.
We may have thought that the dark ages were over, but reality on the ground tells us otherwise. All in all tho, the evangelical right is a small but very vocal segment of our society who happened to hit the jackpot when Bush got into the White House. And while the percentages are small, theses evangelicals are a very dangerous segment of our society which unfortunately still wields some influence, especially with respect to the courts and the American political process. Until we can defeat those who’ve attempted to pervert every aspect of our government with their religious views, we are all at risk of waking up one day living in a theocracy no different than a country like Iran.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me,
xoxo,
nina
10nina aoki
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 16:09
sleive,
Hello sweetie! Thanks so much for chiming in on this! Yes, the New Hampshire model really seems to be working. They’ve been very aggressive about raising awareness and in getting the vaccine out to healthcare providers and in getting young women vaccinated. I’m glad to hear that you’ve started the treatments and I hope you follow thru and finish the shots.
What I think is a good thing is that we’ve been so successful in raising awareness about HPV; not just because of the cancers it can cause, but with things like genital warts and all kinds of other nasty things which can come from HPV. And in many cases and with many strains of the virus, many just go away on their own, but the more virulent strains are the ones we have to worry about, and in the ones which cause cancer, the viral reproductive process actually speeds up the growth of cancerous cells, so this can be a serious health issue.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with me sweetie!
xoxo,
nina
11nina aoki
wrote on 20 May 2007 at 16:26
musns,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.
I’m not sure if HPV is one of the factors the Red Cross screens for when you donate blood. I know they do screen for HIV and Hepatitis, but I can look into that.
Whether or not you’re in a monogamous relationship may contribute to your current risk level, and if you trust your husband and you’re confident in that monogamy then I would tend to agree that you’re not in a high risk group now; however, HPV can lay dormant for many years and then show up as cervical cancer or some other type of cancer of the vulva or vagina later on, so unless you were both virgins on your wedding night and have never had sex with another person, then you’d have nothing to worry about. Also consider too that HPV can be contracted by other kinds of sexual activity like oral sex or even by touching the genitals of an infected person, so only you can determine your own potential exposure level and your husband’s. Interesting fact tho, many men are carriers of HPV and never show a symptom or have any other problems, yet they infect the women they sleep with who can and do develop problems later on.
Also too, this is a health issue, not a morality issue.
The best advice I could offer you would be this; have the conversation with your own doctor about whether or not you need to be tested and or vaccinated. My goal is to raise awareness and to provide information. How you use that information or if you feel it applies to your situation is entirely up to you. I tend to err on the side of caution and if there’s a vaccine which can prevent things like cervical cancer or other kinds of nasty things, then why not?
Thanks so much for adding your thoughts to this!
xoxo,
nina
12Carol
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 15:59
We need another word - perhaps there is one? - beyond monogamy. Monogamy refers to a relationship, where both member of a couple may have had previous lovers but are now exclusive with each other.
If two people have only had a sexual experience of any kind with each other, then they won’t have any STDs. Although there is a risk of disease that can be transmitted sexually as well as non-sexually, such as HIV.
But it’s far too easy to have another sexual encounter and then deny it (to oneself or partner), to the point where it’s difficult to believe in (whatever term there is for uber-monogamy).
It’s not multiple partners that give you HPV, it’s the one partner who also has it. Multiples merely increase the chance of encountering someone with HPV. So the girl with the chastity pledge marries the boy with the chastity pledge. If one of them had a previous experience, in that environment, are they likely to reveal it?
So yeah, let’s vaccinate. It’s easier to hand out tetanus shots than to remove every single rusty nail.
13JW
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 17:36
And on the eighth day, which btw was iDay, I said let there be the Reality-Based Community.
And this Reality-Based Community shall be free of god’s ambulance chasers and there shall be no perceived Teletubby Threat from those whose IQ would equal their shoe sizes.
And so it is! ;)
Joke for today:
Irish girl turns prostitute
The Irish daughter returned home after a 5 year absence. Upon her return, her father cussed her; “Where have you been all this time, you ingrate! Why didn’t you write us, not even a line to let us know how you were doing? Why didn’t you call? You little tramp! Don’t you know what you put your Mum through??!!”
The girl, crying, replied, “Sniff, sniff… Dad… I became a prostitute…”
“WHAT!!? Out of here, you shameless harlot! Sinner! You’re a disgrace to this family. I don’t ever want to see you again!”
“OK, Dad - as you wish. I just came back to give Mom this luxury fur coat, title deeds to a ten-bedroom mansion, plus a savings account certificate for $5-million.
For my little brother, this gold Rolex, and for you Daddy the spanking new Mercedes limited edition convertible that’s parked outside plus a lifetime membership to the Country Club…(takes a breath)…an invitation for you all to spend New Years’ Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera, and….”
“Now what was it you said you had become?”
Girl, crying again, “Sniff, sniff… A prostitute Dad! Sniff, sniff”
Oh! Be Jesus! - you scared me half to death, girl! I thought you said “a Protestant”. Come here and give your old man a hug!”
14nina aoki
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 21:19
Carol,
Thank you for adding your thoughts to this discussion. I agree that we need another word here, or maybe we need to cut thru the illusions and be straight with people. I’ve had so many girlfriends who lived with the illusion that their husband was ‘faithful’ only to find out much later on that it wasn’t the case. Tho I think we need to be respectful because it can be very painful to admit that the person we’ve given ourselves to hasn’t honored that. It’s a sad fact, but it is reality. Which is why something like Gardasil makes so much sense, even if you’re in a so called monogamous committed relationship. HPV is the kind of thing that can rear its ugly head in the form of cancer or lesions or warts at any time and exposure to the virus could have happened years before, so you’re quite correct, unless you can say without any doubt whatsoever that the entire sexual history of the person you’re with consists of you and you alone, then you need to get vaccinated!
And you’re quite correct, it isn’t the number of people you’ve slept with, it’s the one person you slept with that was infected, or the one person that your partner slept with and then slept with you…. who was infected. Yes… much easier to pass out tetanus shots.
Thanks so much for adding this to the discussion. Every time I think we’ve come so far in raising awareness, I’m reminded of how far we’ve still got to go in letting people know about the need to protect themselves, and how to do that.
Thanks again sweetie,
xoxo,
nina
15nina aoki
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 21:24
JW,
Ah yes sweetheart, we do like our community to be “Reality Based” now don’t we?
The battle against ignorance is an ongoing one, and as long as our society breeds these snake oil salesmen with their tele-ministries and mail order law degrees, we’ll have to remain vigilant! iDay huh? Does that mean Steve Jobs is God?
Your joke was very funny sweetie. We’ve managed to offend religious people of all stripes today here in geishaland! hahaha!!!!!
xoxo,
nina
16nina aoki
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 23:19
Disappointing Update
Under the headline and banner of…
“US conservatives block cancer vaccine for girls” — I’ve just learned that four states have shot down mandatory Gardasil vaccinations.
Right Wing Fuckers! May your cocks rot in hell and may the tennis racket get stuck up your arse! Grrrr! :getlost:
17JW
wrote on 21 May 2007 at 23:40
This Says It All.
18nina aoki
wrote on 22 May 2007 at 0:13
JW,
lmao! Oh yes it does! :biggrin:
xoxo,
nina
19musns
wrote on 22 May 2007 at 8:18
So after reading everyone’s comments - I decided that screening and vaccination is probably for the best and will bring it up at my next appt.
Because I have had multiple partners in the past, prior to my marriage and my husband has had one other partner prior; that would mean there is risk.
(I’m picturing that cartoon video they show in HS - where one person is in a room and if you have sex with B (then put B in the room) and B has had sex with C, D and E - (put CDE in the room now) and C has had sex with FGH and D has had sex with IJK and E has had sex with L - we now have person’s A through L in the room, 12 people total). While the first person literally only had sex with person B, he/she has been in contact with potential std’s from 10 other people as well.
Therefore who knows how many people one individual has been exposed to by having sex one time only.
20Anastasia
wrote on 23 May 2007 at 7:52
We currently have the vaccine here in Australia, and no current issues preventing its usage, but it was interesting to read (in one of my local newspapers) that a lot of Christian Right lobbyists are trying to prevent this become a reality across the board (in the US), their argument being that it would somewhat lead to promiscuity (???), and I thought ‘what the f?’ we’re talking about HPV, it predisposing females to the risk of cervical cancer, and this small group of religious nuts trying to prevent this vaccine. It’s insane, and not only that, sometimes I see it as an aggressive stance they take toward women, and their right to make decisions about their health.
21mhatrw
wrote on 23 May 2007 at 13:04
Despite the idiotic rhetoric of conservative nuts, there are a lot of good medical reasons to wait before rushing to get three injections of a vaccine that was approved less than a year ago based on only two years of clinical results.
For example, the most recently released clinical results are very disappointing.
To summarize this published, peer-reviewed medical journal article:
1. In the FUTURE I trial, GARDASIL demonstrated no clinical efficacy among the general subject population for overall reduction in the rates of grade 2 and grade 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and adenocarcinoma — the only recognized precursors to cervical cancer.
2. In the larger FUTURE II trial, GARDASIL demonstrated no clinical efficacy among the general subject population for overall reduction in the rates of grade 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and adenocarcinoma — the strongest (and many would argue only valid) precursors to cervical cancer.
3. GARDASIL’s protection against cancer associated HPV strains 16 and 18 appears to cause a disproportionate increase in of pre-cancerous dysplasias associated with other HPV strains associated with cervical cancer “raising the possibility that other oncogenic HPV types eventually filled the biologic niche left behind after the elimination of HPV types 16 and 18.”
4. Even if look only at the FUTURE II results (in which for some reason GARDASIL performed better among the general female population), we are talking about just a 17% decrease in all high grade dysplasias — many of which would spontaneously regress without treatment. So we would have vaccinate 129 women (at about $500 for the three shot regimen) to avoid a single, eminently treatable dysplasia. That’s about $60,000 per dysplasia prevented.
This is all directly from the article linked above.
I myself would add that we currently have only 3 years of follow up to go on in terms of both GARDASIL’s safety and efficacy among the 16 to 26 year female population, no data concerning its efficacy among 9 to 12 year old girls and only 18 months of follow up on less than 600 total preteen girls in terms of safety data about GARDASIL within its targeted population.
Also see : The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Wall Street Journal
It appears that the vaccinated cohort sees a 20%+ increase in high grade cervical dysplasias caused by cancer-associated HPV strains other than HPV 16 and 18. One possible explanation is that HPV 6 or HPV 11 infections are antagonistic to more dangerous HPV infections.
22nina aoki
wrote on 23 May 2007 at 16:28
musns,
As I previously wrote, I think it’s a good idea to at least have that conversation with your own doctor to decide if Gardasil is right for you and your situation. I sincerely hope that you understand that the goal here is to provide information and to raise awareness, not to be critical of anyone’s views or lifestyle. Disease doesn’t care who you are, you know? And it’s good to be honest with ourselves and recognize that we may have once engaged in risky behavior in the past and we might need to take proactive steps to protect ourselves now. I hope you always feel welcome here and always feel comfortable in expressing your views. They will always be appreciated and valued.
Thanks much!
xoxo,
nina
23nina aoki
wrote on 23 May 2007 at 16:34
Hi Ana!
Oh I know… it’s awful how some have tried to make this a religious argument because there is nothing to suggest that vaccinating girls against HPV encourages them to be promiscuous. That’s like saying that it’s okay to drink the sewer water in Calcutta after getting a diphtheria shot. It’s silly nonsense.
Once again other people in the world can look at the ridiculous Americans and their hypocrisy. I’m not surprised that you Australians are ahead of us on this issue. Unfortunately, the religious right in the United States is a very vocal, albeit small, portion of our society who would like nothing better than if women went back to their ‘pre World War II lives’ of making babies and being good little wives. You know… these are the same cretins who blame eve. lmao! (It’s not funny but I have to laugh…)
Thanks sweetie,
xoxo,
nina
24nina aoki
wrote on 23 May 2007 at 16:49
mhatrw,
Thank you for adding your thoughts to this discussion, tho I’m a bit puzzled as to what you’re arguing here. I appreciate your DU pedigree and I found the associated thread informative and useful, but if you’re making the case that not enough is known about Gardasil, I can only point to the FDA product approval information.
http://www.fda.gov/cber/approvltr/hpvmer060806L.htm
Also, from your own entry on DU:
” IMHO, GARDASIL has been proven effective against the HPV 16 and HPV 18 strains it was designed to protect against over a three year period for 16 to 26 year old females who have not already been exposed to either of those strains. I also believe that this effectiveness will almost certainly translate to the preteen population, at least for a three year period. There is also enough evidence for me to believe that GARDASIL will remain at least partially effective against HPV 16 and 18 for at least 4 to 5 years. I also believe that GARDASIL should definitely not be recommended for women of any age who have been previously exposed to either HPV 16 or 18. Beyond this, the data get very Mercky.
First, whether or not GARDASIL has any efficacy beyond 5 years is completely unknown.
Second, GARDASIL’s efficacy against all high grade cervical lesions caused by all dangerous, cancer associated HPV strains — even among the sub-population who tested negative for both HPV 16 and 18 before the experiment began — is disappointingly small (6% to 27% depending on the study and the sub-population).”
I’m still not sure what the question is?
You claim there are a lot of good medical reasons to wait before “rushing” to get three injections of the Gardasil vaccine, but I’m at a loss as to what those reasons are based on what you’ve offered here. Admittedly, I’m not a doctor, and a lot of this information reads as if it’s been written for those who are. If you can use ‘smaller words’ here for me, I’d certainly be willing to listen.
Thanks,
nina
25JW
wrote on 24 May 2007 at 10:02
I definitely think this isn’t what they had in mind said the Hokey Pokey was what it was all about. But I guess we can thankful it was Merck instead of Pfizer, with their St Cupcakes sales college and their headmistress, Ms Cruella Lustworthy .
Songs of the day:
Fila Brazillia’s “Leonids” from A Touch of Cloth.
And.
Yonderboi’s “Fairy Of The Lake”from Shallow & Profound.
26mhatrw
wrote on 29 May 2007 at 4:37
The use of a highly pharmacologically alum adjuvant as the sole “placebo” in both the FUTURE I & FUTURE II studies makes it impossible to accurately assess the overall risks of vaccination vs. non-vaccination in the real world. Furthermore, the fact that GARDASIL has been studied for safety in just a few hundred pre-teens (again using an alum injection as the “placebo”) is highly problematic.
Even though we don’t have any decent quantitative numbers concerning GARDASIL’s safety (especially on a pre-teen population), we must consider that vaccines in general are not 100% safe. They can cause juvenile arthritis, Guillain-Barre syndrome and other major complications (such as temporary paralysis, fainting, and persistent pain, swelling and itching) in a small subset of the population. Vaccines are not like other medicines in that they are given to a lot of healthy people who would not otherwise contract any disease with or without vaccination. So vaccines must be reasonably effective for their benefits to outweigh their associated risks.
27nina aoki
wrote on 7 June 2007 at 0:22
JW,
Thanks for the links sweetie. I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you. Things have been a little complicated for me lately, but I always appreciate hearing from you, you know.
Thanks hon,
xoxo,
nina
28nina aoki
wrote on 7 June 2007 at 0:25
mhatrw,
I understand the point you’re making, and while I would agree that a lot of long term data is missing, and that no vaccine is 100% safe, I feel the overall benefits of Gardasil outweigh the risks. Ultimately this is a conversation every sexually active woman should have with her own doctor to determine her own risk factors and if the vaccine is practical. In most cases I think it probably is, and if there aren’t any real side effects to worry about, then I would tend to err on the side of getting the vaccine and eliminating the worry.
Thanks so much for your input and for adding your thoughts to this discussion.
xoxo,
nina