I don’t normally blog cancer stuff, since it is now my day job, but this a JAMA article (link goes to news release), not a work article…
I don’t think it is much of a surprise to folks that the HPV vaccine doesn’t treat HPV infection, but it is nice that someone looked into it. Neither Gardasil nor Cervarix were designed to treat infection.
Like a flu vaccine, it is supposed to prevent infection, natch, and thereby nix one of the biggest risk factors for cervical cancer. (There are therapeutic vaccines out there, but so far they’ve been most effective in riling up the immune system to make other therapies better at killing cancer cells.)
I bring this up only to point out the oddities of the anti-HPV vaccination debate. There’s two obvious factions: folks who are anti-vaccination on any count, although they’re less vocal here; and those that are anti-vaccination since HPV is (shock) sexually transmitted. Obviously, they can’t bear the notion that their daughters will have sex one day.
So, officially*, those who object are on notice: HPV vaccine won’t protect your daughter after she’s been infected. <strike>The naughty whore. </strike>
Meanwhile, there’s the other side of the equation: boys and their nasty little virus-carrying penises. Hey, that’s generally where the girls are getting their HPV infections. I ‘ve read that Merck is looking into putting together a Gardasil study in boys. Not that I don’t subscribe to the same double-standard, I do have a daughter after all, but I’d be interested if vaccinating boys would be as controversial.
* Not really.