HPV vaccine approved for boys and men
Sunday Oct 18, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine called Gardasil, which was initially developed to help prevent women from developing cervical cancer, induced by sexually transmitted virus called human papillomavirus, for use in boys and men, media reported.
Gardasil has already been approved to be used in females to prevent the scary yet rare cancer of the cervix. The cancer kills a few thousands of women each year in the United States compared to more than 40,000 deaths from highway traffic incidents.
The FDA found Gardasil to be safe and effective in protecting men and boys from genital warts, which are in 90 percent of cases caused by types 6 and 11 HPV strains.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has yet to decide whether to recommend its use in boys and if it does, many states will follow to mandate inoculation. A CDC panel will convene next week to discuss the issue.
This is an issue because boys and men may not directly benefit from the inoculation. No more than 1 percent of sexually active males in the U.S. actually develop genital warts, which are just irritating, but not at all life-threatening.
The potential argument could be that use of the vaccine in males could help women because transmission of HPV from men that cause the warts can lead to cervical cancer in women and girls.
But it is a question how many parents would take their sons to a clinic to get the HPV vaccine just because it would prevent something that may occur in his girlfriend(s). The risk for a woman to get cervical cancer from a medical viewpoint is RARE.
By David Liu
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This seems like an odd article to get from the FDA. Multiple times they discount the idea of vaccinating men because they personally won't get hurt too bad by HPV. What about the women, or men, they'll eventually sleep with? Do we have no interest in protecting them?
Want to tell me why we still vaccinate against Polio? Isn't it "RARE" to have someone die of it? It certainly happens less in the USA than the "40,000 deaths from highway traffic incidents". Let's just quit vaccinating against it.
Or, we can realize that there's massive benefit to our society to protect everyone from this threat. HPV infects over 50% of sexually active adults. Sure, it rarely kills anyone but is there no value in protecting against it anyway? Is there no value in trying to eliminate the worst strains before it becomes a major problem? Is there no value in trying to eliminate it before it mutates and becomes more deadly? Virus's do that all the time. Just look at the flu.
There is no evidence of serious side effects from the vaccine and it protects people from a very common virus. I see no reason whatsoever not to vaccinate against it. Frankly I'm a little offended by the fact that my tax dollars are being used to stir up a scare campaign against it just because the virus only "kills a few thousands of women each year in the United States". After all, what do we care if a few thousand women die each year as long as we don't have to be inconvenienced by having to get our kids a shot when we bring our kids to the Dr for their checkup.
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