Dr. Ronald A. DePinho is on a mission. DePinho, who’s been a cancer researcher for decades and currently serves as the president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, wants to reframe the national conversation about the HPV vaccine to drive home a fundamental point.
Tag: HPV vaccine
Two Doses of HPV Vaccine May be Just as Effective as Three, Study Shows
The human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine is widely viewed as an effective way to protect women from both cervical cancer and genital warts. But doctors suspect the high cost and inconvenience associated with the vaccine, which consist of three shots given over the course of six months, may be preventing women and young girls from receiving it.
2 in 5 Parents Don’t Support HPV Vaccinations for Daughters
New study shows that more than 2 out of every 5 parents in the U.S. find vaccination against human papilloma virus unnecessary.
According to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 11,967 new cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year. The agency recommends the HPV vaccination for all pre-teen girls and boys aged 11 to 12.
“HPV causes essentially 100 percent of cervical cancer and 50 percent of all Americans get infected at least once with HPV. It’s a silent infection. You cannot tell when you’ve been exposed or when you have it. While most HPV infections clear, a percentage linger and start the process of cancerous changes. The HPV vaccine is an anti-cancer vaccine,” said Robert Jacobson, M.D., a pediatrician with the Mayo Clinic Children’s Center and senior author of the study.
The number of parents saying that they wouldn’t get their children vaccinated has grown over the past few years. In 2010, about 44 percent had said no to the vaccine compared to about 40 percent in 2005. Read full article.
Girls Who Got HPV Vaccine Had Better Understanding of Reproduction and Sexuality
Research presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine showed that girls who had received the HPV vaccine had higher levels of knowledge about human sexuality and reproduction than girls who had not.
HPV Shots Don’t Make Girls Promiscuous Study Says
CHICAGO — Shots that protect against cervical cancer do not make girls promiscuous, according to the first study to compare medical records for vaccinated and unvaccinated girls.
The researchers didn’t ask girls about having sex, but instead looked at “markers” of sexual activity after vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV. Specifically, they examined up to three years of records on whether girls had sought birth control advice; tests for sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy; or had become pregnant.
Very few of the girls who got the shots at age 11 or 12 had done any of those over the next three years, or by the time they were 14 or 15. Moreover, the study found no difference in rates of those markers compared with unvaccinated girls. Read full article.
HPV Vaccine Gets a (Mostly) Clean Bill of Health
A large study of the safety of the HPV vaccine has turned up no unexpected side effects.
The study, published Monday in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, did find that the vaccine caused some women to faint the day they received it, and some recipients also developed skin infections. Both problems are believed to be general side effects of vaccines, and unrelated to anything specific about the HPV shot. Read full article.