Boys and HPV vaccine?

[Guest]

Ok so let's suppose Sally always makes sure her partner wears a condom and then Sally meets "the one"  and even insists that "the one" gets tested for stuff.  Since HPV is found in nearly 100% of the population of those people who have had sex, he will probably test positive.  I don't know if they can then identify the pesky and worrisome types (I really don't know if they do that).  So then what?  She rejects to be with him?  They wear a condom always and forever?  I can't imagine this.  And there is NO treatment for HPV.  Nothing as of yet kills it.  When it causes a problem the only way to deal is to cut and freeze body parts. 

 

And being blunt, condoms suck.  Sure I'd rather deal with the issues caused by condoms than die from a crazy disease, but they suck and a lot of people have issues with them.  They also break.  They aren't this perfect awesome 100% protective thing.

 

That's a very good example. Also, the effectiveness of condoms with conditions like HPV and HSV are not as high as people like to think they are. There is a lot of skin left exposed to say the least, and that's all it takes to transmit some of these viruses thanks to the way body fluids work. Condoms are good for preventing certain things, but in some ways they were overhyped under the mentality of better have people wear them than not, so it was a justified over statement. But they are not even close to 100% effective for stopping transmissions of several diseases. 

 

Also- how many people actually wear condoms for oral sex? Judging by our research studies I can tell you- NOT MANY. Particularly heterosexual people. That is one area where homosexual populations are far more educated as far as research is concerned. Question heterosexual adults on what a dental dam or a female condom is or about wearing a condom for oral sex and they will look at you like you are crazy, which is largely why we had an epidemic of oral cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia amongst teens and preteens in this country recently. Those kids had NO IDEA what all yuo can catch through oral sex. HPV is honestly the least of your worries in the immediate time, but will come back to bite you in 10-30 years. (As will syphilis). 

 

Lastly, to address someone's point that boys don't get penile cancer or other HPV related cancers in high rates...... Medical authorities did not outwardly acknowledge to the general public that cervical cancer and HPV were directly linked until the mid/late nineties, even though the research was present long before. The evidence was glaring but it caused an ethical issue for many to come down and pronounce that a behavior could cause cancer. The same thing is happening now with throat cancer and other cancers. When you peg a cancer on a behavior is it a delicate subject. Do not let the outward lack of pronouncements by the AMA or anyone else that these are real risks dilute the reality the researchers see and that are published in medical journals. 

 

For anyone with interest in the topic I urge you to use Google Scholar, NOT regular google to further research the topic. You may not be able to access a lot of the journals without a subscription but you can at least access the abstracts which is enough for most people. If you want to do further research you can always go to a medical library and access the actual journal. Too many people on regular google bat around statistics without citing the original article or having a clue what the actual statistics mean. If you are considering a scientific solution, which is what a lab developed vaccine is, then you should chose to review scientific peer reviewed articles that address that solution. To me that is the apples to apples comparison. (And please note I am not slamming people who chose not to vaccinate as non-scientific, however you cannot say that vaccines are non-scientific and that is the proper terminology to address this.) 

[Guest]

Oh not to mention I already posted this, but condoms do not 100% protect against HPV even if used correctly every time.  The virus can be on nearby parts and can be spread. 

 

Everyone needs to make sure their kids (of both sexes) understands this in full and that it stands as true for Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) as well, whether they vaccinate or not. 

Edited October 25, 2016 by texasmom33

[SKL]

The risk is still quite low even if you get HPV.  And it still isn't zero even if you have the vax.  Personally I prefer to take that very small risk than to combine a multitude of intrusive and painful interventions to reduce it only partway.

 

My kids are free to disagree when they are old enough to make their own decision.

 

I could see letting the kids decide for themselves when they are older but still on their parents' insurance.

[SKL]

When it comes to vaccine risk vs. disease risk, I believe in weighting them, i.e., so if we recommend 100% of youths get the vax and say 1% get a reaction / injury that is no less pleasant than discovering and treating early stage cancer, that's what, 500,000 bad reactions in the current youthful population, compared to annual cervical cancer cases which are about 12,000 (4,000 deaths) - numbers that would presumably be lower if everyone followed the recommendations for safer sex and periodic screenings, but which would still not be zero even if everyone had the HPV vax.

 

For me, personally, the risk analysis works out "no vax."  Then again, I have seen bad vax injuries and I've seen early stage cervical cancer treated.  I wouldn't wish either on my kids, but from what I've seen, the latter is less troublesome.  Those of you who've seen the opposite will understandably feel differently.

[KungFuPanda]

Nm

Edited October 25, 2016 by KungFuPanda

[Joules]

Where? This is a long article about general safety issues with vaccines. Adjuvants, Mercury, safety in pregnancy, etc.

 

The Aluminium adjuvants section disputes the two articles the ophthalmologist, Tomljenovic, wrote about the safety of HPV vaccines.  They are references 3 and 4 at the bottom of the page.  That is the research she cited in the article that you posted.

 

The effectiveness claims have been disputed by studies cited in the CDC and WHO.  There are some in the links others have posted.

 

The author's last paper in 2015 had to be withdrawn from the journal Vaccine due to questionable methods/data:

 

"This article has been withdrawn at the request of the Editor-in-Chief due to serious concerns regarding the scientific soundness of the article. Review by the Editor-in-Chief and evaluation by outside experts, confirmed that the methodology is seriously flawed, and the claims that the article makes are unjustified. As an international peer-reviewed journal we believe it is our duty to withdraw the article from further circulation, and to notify the community of this issue. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy."

Edited October 25, 2016 by Joules

[Guest]

The risk is still quite low even if you get HPV.  And it still isn't zero even if you have the vax.  Personally I prefer to take that very small risk than to combine a multitude of intrusive and painful interventions to reduce it only partway.

 

My kids are free to disagree when they are old enough to make their own decision.

 

I could see letting the kids decide for themselves when they are older but still on their parents' insurance.

 

The risk of what is low? Cervical cancer was one of the leading cause of women's death in the US until widespread pap smears were instituted. The rate has greatly declined in the last 50 years because of screening. So, yes I guess you can take the view that the screening has decreased the threat of the cancer, but that doesn't mean that thing causing the cancer no longer exists. It simply means interventions have been put in place to help prevent the development of that one particular cancer. The risk of cervical cancer is certainly also much higher in Hispanic and Black populations as opposed to White, Asian, and American Indian populations, so not all groups have  seen the decline. With insurance rates skyrocketing and shifts in medical care here too, that may change if people can't afford to keep their health insurance- with healthcare.gov going up an estimated 25% as reported in the news yesterday this soon may be a very sad reality. 

 

You are most definitely entitled to make that decision to not vaccinate your kids and to do so without criticism, but I do think you are understating both the incidence and the risk associated with HPV in general here.  Anything that 80-90% of the population contracts is not a low incidence disease and the understanding of the links between cancer and viruses is still, in terms of scientific history, a newer field. Considering we only figured out the link between cervical cancer and HPV in the last 20 years, and other cancers more recently than that, it is a limited view to think that there are not potentially other complications to this disease that we are just realizing, not to mention the issues of funding and other things that further complicate the research of sexually transmitted diseases. They tend not to be the darlings of the research funding establishment unless a lot of people of the right social strata are dying. 

 

We apparently will have to agree to disagree on that as well as the risks of the vaccine itself. 

[Reefgazer]

Yes, they can, with a simple assay.

Ok so let's suppose Sally always makes sure her partner wears a condom and then Sally meets "the one"  and even insists that "the one" gets tested for stuff.  Since HPV is found in nearly 100% of the population of those people who have had sex, he will probably test positive.  I don't know if they can then identify the pesky and worrisome types (I really don't know if they do that).  So then what?  She rejects to be with him?  They wear a condom always and forever?  I can't imagine this.  And there is NO treatment for HPV.  Nothing as of yet kills it.  When it causes a problem the only way to deal is to cut and freeze body parts. 

And being blunt, condoms suck.  Sure I'd rather deal with the issues caused by condoms than die from a crazy disease, but they suck and a lot of people have issues with them.  They also break.  They aren't this perfect awesome 100% protective thing.

 

[TranquilMind]

The Aluminium adjuvants section disputes the two articles the ophthalmologist, Tomljenovic, wrote about the safety of HPV vaccines.  They are references 3 and 4 at the bottom of the page.  That is the research she cited in the article that you posted.

 

The effectiveness claims have been disputed by studies cited in the CDC and WHO.  There are some in the links others have posted.

 

The author's last paper in 2015 had to be withdrawn from the journal Vaccine due to questionable methods/data:

 

"This article has been withdrawn at the request of the Editor-in-Chief due to serious concerns regarding the scientific soundness of the article. Review by the Editor-in-Chief and evaluation by outside experts, confirmed that the methodology is seriously flawed, and the claims that the article makes are unjustified. As an international peer-reviewed journal we believe it is our duty to withdraw the article from further circulation, and to notify the community of this issue. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy."

 

Ok, thanks. 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Despite how it seems, I do respect the right to reject this vaccine.  Not all the reasoning is terrible even if I don't see it that way.  It's perfectly fine to say this doesn't go along with my beliefs, etc.  But where I do have a problem is just flat out saying stuff about the vaccine, HPV, etc. that is not true.  It is NOT true that one can be well protected from HPV with a condom.  It is not true that the vaccine has been shown to be wildly ineffective and harmful.  And it is not true that there is now some epidemic of 11 year olds having sex free for alls because they caught wind that they can be protected from one sexually transmitted disease.  I get being wigged out at the prospect of our own kids having sex some day.  I really do not like thinking about that, but it's a normal human thing and not up there with drug dealing or whatever horrible activity we can imagine and worry about our kids engaging in.  Opting to ignore these details about our kids won't mean they won't have sex when we think it is less than ideal. 

[Farrar]

I'm afraid to read the responses but I can't not chip in. (ETA: And, now having looked over it... yeah, I'm not going to read it all...)

 

I lost my father to an HPV related cancer.

 

And I lost my step-father as well.

 

There's no way I won't vaccinate my boys.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Farrar

[MEmama]

I'm afraid to read the responses but I can't not chip in. (ETA: And, now having looked over it... yeah, I'm not going to read it all...)

 

I lost my father to an HPV related cancer.

 

And I lost my step-father as well.

 

There's no way I won't vaccinate my boys.

So sorry to hear it! :(

 

Probably a good decision to not read this thread...:(

[Lady Florida.]

But where I do have a problem is just flat out saying stuff about the vaccine, HPV, etc. that is not true.  It is NOT true that one can be well protected from HPV with a condom.  It is not true that the vaccine has been shown to be wildly ineffective and harmful.  And it is not true that there is now some epidemic of 11 year olds having sex free for alls because they caught wind that they can be protected from one sexually transmitted disease.

 

It's also NOT true that the vaccine is unsafe. It's NOT true that it's causing a rash of deaths. It's NOT true that it's causing an epidemic of permanent injuries to young girls across the globe.

 

 

I get being wigged out at the prospect of our own kids having sex some day.  I really do not like thinking about that, but it's a normal human thing and not up there with drug dealing or whatever horrible activity we can imagine and worry about our kids engaging in.  Opting to ignore these details about our kids won't mean they won't have sex when we think it is less than ideal.

 

Our society is wigged out by the idea that people have sex at all. That it's not only a normal human thing, but that humans have sex even when they aren't trying to procreate. The biggest ick factors however, seem to be the ideas that our children and our parents (and even our grandparents) have/had sex and like it. 

 

It's not helpful especially when it comes to our children. We're much more able to teach them and protect them when we pull our heads out of the sand. Protecting them against certain types of cancer is not giving them carte blanche to just go sexually wild any more than getting them a tetanus shot is telling them to go play with rusty nails. 

 

This isn't about sex. It's about CANCER. I often wonder if people would act this way if there was a vaccine to prevent colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, leukemia (blood cancer), bone cancer, or any other type of cancer. Anti-vaxers will be anti-vax regardless of the vaccine but the HPV vaccine turns even some vaccine proponents against it. It truly doesn't make sense to me. Science has found a way to prevent at least some types of cancer. The fact that this cancer-causing virus is transmitted (mostly) sexually shouldn't even come into play.

 

SCIENCE HAS FOUND A WAY TO PREVENT SOME TYPES OF CANCER! 

 

Yes, I yelled. Because I think this should be a reason for celebration and a reason for continued funding of cancer vaccine research.

 

Not a reason to say "Lalalala I can't hear you."

[SKL]

Well I am skeptical about the safety, because it is legitimately hard to know whom you can trust these days.  I have seen reports of serious injuries.  Then I see people saying those reports are faked for political reasons or whatever.  Then I see that this or that pharma company has been caught lying and cheating on drug tests.  Then I see another story about vax injury.  And on and on.  Call me whatever name you like, I have been around 50 years and I've seen too many cases where "science" was debunked.

 

A bit of a tangent, but I recently read the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."  Cancer cells from her body were used for all kinds of scientific and medical research.  Somewhere along the way, it was discovered that many, many of the cells used in the research were contaminated, thus invalidating important scientific studies.  Many scientists weren't willing to accept this and continued to stand by their work for years.  This is just one example where science has real limits and it can be flat out wrong.  I have nothing against science, I just don't believe pharma research is at the level of godly perfection.

 

The vax in question here is still pretty new.  I will not rush to poke my kids with it.

 

I would feel the same if it was another kind of cancer that is relatively rare and mostly preventable/curable without a vax.  On the other hand, I might be more willing to try a vax against a massive deadly epidemic against which there was no other hope.

 

I don't judge others who do the vax.  I am in favor of everyone studying it and making their own decision for their own family.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well I am skeptical about the safety, because it is legitimately hard to know whom you can trust these days.  I have seen reports of serious injuries.  Then I see people saying those reports are faked for political reasons or whatever.  Then I see that this or that pharma company has been caught lying and cheating on drug tests.  Then I see another story about vax injury.  And on and on.  Call me whatever name you like, I have been around 50 years and I've seen too many cases where "science" was debunked.

 

A bit of a tangent, but I recently read the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."  Cancer cells from her body were used for all kinds of scientific and medical research.  Somewhere along the way, it was discovered that many, many of the cells used in the research were contaminated, thus invalidating important scientific studies.  Many scientists weren't willing to accept this and continued to stand by their work for years.  This is just one example where science has real limits and it can be flat out wrong.  I have nothing against science, I just don't believe pharma research is at the level of godly perfection.

 

The vax in question here is still pretty new.  I will not rush to poke my kids with it.

 

I would feel the same if it was another kind of cancer that is relatively rare and mostly preventable/curable without a vax.  On the other hand, I might be more willing to try a vax against a massive deadly epidemic against which there was no other hope.

 

I don't judge others who do the vax.  I am in favor of everyone studying it and making their own decision for their own family.

 

I have the same worries.  It's not easy to make all of these decisions. 

 

[Farrar]

I understand the generalized fear, but if you watched someone die painfully of an HPV caused cancer, I'd be shocked if anyone second guessed the vaccine given what's out there now about it. The HPV strains covered do cause several cancers that can affect men, some of which are on the rise.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

You know what debunks science?

Science.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yes, but vaccine plus condom use is a darn sight better than no vaccine and no condom use. 

 

It's about reducing cancer rates in the population, not a guarantee that each individual will be 100% protected from HPV.

 

I was responding to the comments that it can be prevented by condom use.  Like don't bother with the vaccine because you can just use a condom.

 

According to the CDC the rate of HPV is nearly 100% (not the rate of the bad forms, but of some form).  So it seems reasonable to conclude that condoms don't work for preventing it and/or people don't use condoms every time. 

[SKL]

I was responding to the comments that it can be prevented by condom use.  Like don't bother with the vaccine because you can just use a condom.

 

According to the CDC the rate of HPV is nearly 100% (not the rate of the bad forms, but of some form).  So it seems reasonable to conclude that condoms don't work for preventing it and/or people don't use condoms every time. 

 

I was just on the CDC site in the last hour, and it said "more than half" of sexually active men and women will have HPV at some time in their lives.  That most cases resolve themselves.  That currently 20 million have some form of HPV.

 

That's not 100%, but more importantly, only a small % of those cases lead to cancer.

 

And we all know that the % consistent use of condoms is not super duper high in the USA.  That's a choice.  People could make a different choice if based on the link with cancer - if they were informed about it.

Edited October 25, 2016 by SKL

[TranquilMind]

You know what debunks science?

Science.

Yes. On a regular basis. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/

 

 

 

"It didn’t turn out that way. In poring over medical journals, he was struck by how many findings of all types were refuted by later findings. Of course, medical-science “never minds†are hardly secret. And they sometimes make headlines, as when in recent years large studies or growing consensuses of researchers concluded that mammograms, colonoscopies, and PSA tests are far less useful cancer-detection tools than we had been told; or when widely prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil were revealed to be no more effective than a placebo for most cases of depression; or when we learned that staying out of the sun entirely can actually increase cancer risks; or when we were told that the advice to drink lots of water during intense exercise was potentially fatal; or when, last April, we were informed that taking fish oil, exercising, and doing puzzles doesn’t really help fend off Alzheimer’s disease, as long claimed. Peer-reviewed studies have come to opposite conclusions on whether using cell phones can cause brain cancer, whether sleeping more than eight hours a night is healthful or dangerous, whether taking aspirin every day is more likely to save your life or cut it short, and whether routine angioplasty works better than pills to unclog heart arteries.

 

But beyond the headlines, Ioannidis was shocked at the range and reach of the reversals he was seeing in everyday medical research. “Randomized controlled trials,†which compare how one group responds to a treatment against how an identical group fares without the treatment, had long been considered nearly unshakable evidence, but they, too, ended up being wrong some of the time. “I realized even our gold-standard research had a lot of problems,†he says. Baffled, he started looking for the specific ways in which studies were going wrong. And before long he discovered that the range of errors being committed was astonishing: from what questions researchers posed, to how they set up the studies, to which patients they recruited for the studies, to which measurements they took, to how they analyzed the data, to how they presented their results, to how particular studies came to be published in medical journals."

Edited October 25, 2016 by TranquilMind

[SparklyUnicorn]

I was just on the CDC site in the last hour, and it said "more than half" of sexually active men and women will have HPV at some time in their lives.  That most cases resolve themselves.  That currently 20 million have some form of HPV.

 

That's not 100%, but more importantly, only a small % of those cases lead to cancer.

 

And we all know that the % consistent use of condoms is not super duper high in the USA.  That's a choice.  People could make a different choice if based on the link with cancer - if they were informed about it.

 

Q: How common is HPV?

A: HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection in the US. HPV is so common that nearly all sexually active men and women will get at least one type of HPV at some point in their lives. Most people never know that they have been infected and may give HPV to a partner without knowing it. About 79 million Americans are currently infected with HPV. About 14 million people become newly infected each year.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/parents/questions-answers.html

[SKL]

Q: How common is HPV?

A: HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection in the US. HPV is so common that nearly all sexually active men and women will get at least one type of HPV at some point in their lives. Most people never know that they have been infected and may give HPV to a partner without knowing it. About 79 million Americans are currently infected with HPV. About 14 million people become newly infected each year.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/parents/questions-answers.html

 

 

Well maybe they should coordinate better within the CDC.  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/hpv-gardasil.html

 

Which one is accurate?  Or is either of them?

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well maybe they should coordinate better within the CDC.  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/hpv-gardasil.html

 

Which one is accurate?  Or is either of them?

 

Yeah that's downright confusing!

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well maybe they should coordinate better within the CDC.  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/hpv-gardasil.html

 

Which one is accurate?  Or is either of them?

 

The one I quoted is 2 years newer. 

 

Don't know if that makes a difference. 

[Kathryn]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/the-startling-rise-in-oral-cancer-in-men-and-what-it-says-about-our-changing-sexual-habits/?tid=sm_fb

 

Just posted article on rise in oral cancers and what it says about changing sexual habits.

[Guest]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/the-startling-rise-in-oral-cancer-in-men-and-what-it-says-about-our-changing-sexual-habits/?tid=sm_fb

 

Just posted article on rise in oral cancers and what it says about changing sexual habits.

 

Well that was timely. 

[Farrar]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/the-startling-rise-in-oral-cancer-in-men-and-what-it-says-about-our-changing-sexual-habits/?tid=sm_fb

 

Just posted article on rise in oral cancers and what it says about changing sexual habits.

 

It's more common among younger people (I've now known two people my own age with this cancer), but this is exactly what killed my father. The prognosis is decent (though expect to never enjoy food again when you lose all your taste buds to radiation or having your tongue partially removed) for younger men, but it can hit at any time and it's not great for older men, just like many cancer diagnoses.

 

Also note that this is what your dentist is looking for when she grasps your tongue and twists it all around uncomfortably while staring at it and into your throat with the light.

 

It's a freaking cancer vaccine. A cancer vaccine. I never thought in my lifetime.

[cintinative]

This is what I was leaning towards. He's 11, high-functioning autistic, and doesn't leave my sight. I'm not seeing it needed anytime soon. I don't know what the deal is with people claiming auto-immune effects, but there is a history of auto-immune issues in my family and so that gives me pause. I also worry about how long the effectiveness lasts.

Can you elaborate on this? Is there a study relating to this?  We are in the same situation. Both DH and I have auto-immunes, and so does DS11.  We have not had the vaccine yet--it hasn't even been brought up by the pediatrician. 

[Kathryn]

Can you elaborate on this? Is there a study relating to this? We are in the same situation. Both DH and I have auto-immunes, and so does DS11. We have not had the vaccine yet--it hasn't even been brought up by the pediatrician.

It came out when my oldest, a boy, was an infant, so I didn't pay a lot of attention. But, I recall seeing news reports about girls who developed autoimmune issues after receiving the vaccine. Googling yields lots of anecdotal evidence of such cases, but the CDC says:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/pdf/data-summary-hpv-gardasil-vaccine-is-safe.pdf

And the WHO says:

http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/hpv/dec_2013/en/

[Kathryn]

If anyone is wondering, at this point we've decided to do it next year. He's getting the meningococcal one this year and I don't like to do more than one new one at a time.

[redsquirrel]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/the-startling-rise-in-oral-cancer-in-men-and-what-it-says-about-our-changing-sexual-habits/?tid=sm_fb

 

Just posted article on rise in oral cancers and what it says about changing sexual habits.

 

I was just coming here to post this article, lol.

 

Yes, it made me very glad that my boy are, or will be, vaccinated. 

 

It also makes me wonder if HPV can be spread orally, so by a kiss.

 

I looked it up and it says it is spread by bodily fluids from contact with an infected body part. So.... maybe orally?

[Kathryn]

I was just coming here to post this article, lol.

 

Yes, it made me very glad that my boy are, or will be, vaccinated.

 

It also makes me wonder if HPV can be spread orally, so by a kiss.

 

I looked it up and it says it is spread by bodily fluids from contact with an infected body part. So.... maybe orally?

I wonder about sharing drinks?

[Guest]

I was just coming here to post this article, lol.

 

Yes, it made me very glad that my boy are, or will be, vaccinated. 

 

It also makes me wonder if HPV can be spread orally, so by a kiss.

 

I looked it up and it says it is spread by bodily fluids from contact with an infected body part. So.... maybe orally?

 

When I left research, that was an area of inquiry but there was not sufficient data at the time for them to conclusively link it. Sexual behaviors are hard to isolate in a vacuum which makes it more difficult to sift out what is and is not a risk, especially with common behaviours.

 

Think back to when HIV first was publicized- we didn't know what was and wasn't dangerous, and it took some time to figure out that women and men having sex with men were more at risk than hetero men. And even longer to figure out that uncircumcised men had a disproportionately high risk of contracting HIV as compared to circumcised men. They've of course since sorted all of that out and research has made the risks and the why of the risks more obvious (in most cases), but it's a long path.

 

Kissing has different immune factors involved than sex so it gets murkier what is and isn't transmissible. It's also difficult to find a significant amount of study subjects (I'm assuming) who have not ever kissed someone (outside of children and they have their own research regulations) to find a control group, whereas it is much easier to find populations who have not engaged in certain sex acts.

 

There may have been some conclusive research conducted on it, but if there has been I'm not aware of it. I try to stay somewhat aware of what's going on should I ever have to come out of retirement! 

 

ETA: To be clear there is no question that oral sex is a clear pathway for HPV transmission. After rereading a couple of people's questions I wasn't sure if they were referring to that by orally or by kissing alone. Kissing is an unknown to my knowledge. There are theories that the pervasiveness and acceptability of porn, and likewise behaviors that were traditionally more "out there" and seen in mostly in porn  than real life relationships in western cultures has led to a normalization of oral sex (among other things) by both men and women as compared to our older counterparts when it was not as common. A lot of these behaviors can be positively correlated with the popularity, or rather availability of porn, but that being said obviously causation and correlation are not always one in the same. 

Edited October 26, 2016 by texasmom33

[Guest]

Not that anyone asked, but I thought I would throw this out there. If you truly want a highly peer reviewed text book that will give you more information than you could ever ask for about STD's, then this is the book. If you know what the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) is, well this is the STD researchers' version of that book. They release a new edition about every ten years, so it is not the latest fly by night theory. It is peer reviewed out the wazoo (to use the technical term). I would not expect anyone to buy it, but you could probably find it at any decent medical library to skim it. 

 

This is the amazon link so you can get the ISBN number if interested. 

 

Sexually Transmitted Diseases, fourth edition

 

I depended on this book heavily during my years in research (actually the third edition at that time) and it is still the book I use when my friends send their teenagers over for "the talk part 2" as it has some very informative pictures and can answer any question most people can think of.

 

 If anyone wants an unbiased presentation of all of these issues in the quiet of their own home, without wondering if you stumbled upon a crack pot internet site or something legit, please do consider finding this book. Full disclosure- I do have research published in some of the segments of this book but I am not one of the leading authors and definitely am not an editor, so I am not making a dime off of it, or from recommending it. It is one of the most comprehensive books on the subject matter however, and that is why I am mentioning it. I think it is a topic that a lot of people have questions about, but don't know where to go to for answers, and this is a conclusive and trusted (by the medical community as a whole) source. It is also much more informative than the CDC website or other sites used in this thread, so I thought it worth mentioning as obviously this is a topic of interest on these boards. There isn't really anything up for dispute that is featured in this book. 

 

Anyway, that is all. I just thought it well worth mentioning as a resource. Taking off my instructor hat now and going back to mom mode.........

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by texasmom33

[December]

I think it was chickenpox.

 

I am just not sure what to say if you are so set on thinking that measles was a mild disease.  My parents both had it, luckily with no lasting effect though it was truly miserable.  But they also both know people that had serious complications like infertility and blindness.   There is a reason people were so happy to get another option.

 

Actually, from your description it was probably diphtheria.  That one was infamous for killing all or most of a family's children.

[Reefgazer]

I am pro-vax, and my kids are fully vaxxed, but I have worked in R+D and QC for a large pharma company and I know firsthand that the bolded is true.  One company I worked for 30 years ago (which shall remained unnamed), was sued for many millions over a vaccine injury that was not a result of vaccine science issues, but was a result of a QC failure.  The details are in the pharma trade papers; this company produced a required, critical (as in nearly everyone gets it) vaccine.  The vaccine had production problems that resulted in a vaccine that was not properly attenuated, but QC passed the vaccine lots that should have failed.  Long story short, someone got sick, company was sued and a judgment entered for many millions. 

 

This is the stuff I worry about regarding vaccines, but these things are not unique to the HPV vaccine.  They are really a company-integrity and greed matter; someone very high up on the food chain deemed that this vaccine should be passed because of the millions already spent on production, and the additional millions that would have been lost had vaccine production been shut down to address the issues that caused the vaccine to fail.  I don't know how to effectively address this particular issue, but I know it is not unreasonable to worry about something like this happening (to any vaccine or drug).  I brought this up with the kids' pediatrician and he acknowledged that this was a problem.  His only answer was that the vaccine injury fund was put in place to deal with this problem, which doesn't really solve the problem, and is cold comfort to those who have suffered a vaccine injury.  I also know these QC problems are not uncommon, because after I resigned that company (I didn't like being pressured to sign off on what I deemed were failed vaccine lots), I moved to a small, specialized food company that had a QC issue and wouldn't shut down production, either, despite QC saying certain batches of a food additive failed.  Too much money involved.  But that case was not life-or-health critical, just a matter of food taste issues.

 

All of which is to say, as you mentioned earlier in this thread, that everyone makes a cost-benefit analysis of all of these things before deciding to get a vaccine.  We have decided to get the recommended vaccines, because despite what I have seen, I still feel that they are a good gamble.  But I can certainly see where someone else could come to a different conclusion, which is why parents should make the call on whether to vax or not, and their choices should be respected on that matter.

Well I am skeptical about the safety, because it is legitimately hard to know whom you can trust these days.  I have seen reports of serious injuries.  Then I see people saying those reports are faked for political reasons or whatever.  Then I see that this or that pharma company has been caught lying and cheating on drug tests.  Then I see another story about vax injury.  And on and on.  Call me whatever name you like, I have been around 50 years and I've seen too many cases where "science" was debunked.

 

A bit of a tangent, but I recently read the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."  Cancer cells from her body were used for all kinds of scientific and medical research.  Somewhere along the way, it was discovered that many, many of the cells used in the research were contaminated, thus invalidating important scientific studies.  Many scientists weren't willing to accept this and continued to stand by their work for years.  This is just one example where science has real limits and it can be flat out wrong.  I have nothing against science, I just don't believe pharma research is at the level of godly perfection.

 

The vax in question here is still pretty new.  I will not rush to poke my kids with it.

 

I would feel the same if it was another kind of cancer that is relatively rare and mostly preventable/curable without a vax.  On the other hand, I might be more willing to try a vax against a massive deadly epidemic against which there was no other hope.

 

I don't judge others who do the vax.  I am in favor of everyone studying it and making their own decision for their own family.

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by reefgazer

[Joyofsixreboot]

I am completely positive that my boys were not sexually active prior to age 18, so we bypassed that HPV while they were teens, and I told them it was their choice once they were 18.

Our approach for lots of shots.

[Zuzu822]

A few years ago I went to our local history museum, and they had a display about some of the old families in our part of the city.  It included family trees.  There was one family of ten kids, that had only three survive to adulthood.  The rest died from what is now a vaccinated illness.  Four in one summer, and three others the next summer.  All under 10 years old.

 

If people still saw that around them I think it would be much more clear why vaccination is preferable to the "lifelong immunity" they get from actually having the disease.

 

Actually, from your description it was probably diphtheria.  That one was infamous for killing all or most of a family's children.

 

Yes, like the family in this post. Scroll down to the Kershaw gravestone. A family lost ALL EIGHT of their children in less than three weeks from diphtheria in 1897, not to mention three others as well.  :crying:

 

http://lincolnlog1972.blogspot.com/2014/08/hunting-for-homesteads.html

[SKL]

As far as QC, it isn't just at the pharma companies either.  I read that the reason 2 shots are required in the initial MMR series is as follows.  They originally were supposed to do 1 shot, but many kids were still getting measles.  They did a study to find out why the field results were different from the lab results.  They found that it was because some doctors were not keeping the product at the right temperature, so it became ineffective.  The solution was to require 2 shots, to up the chances that at least one of them would take!

 

That's not an anti-vax argument, but a push-back to the attitude that vaxes are the simple, obvious, fool-proof, almost 100% effective solution to any disease we can possibly vax against.

 

I would really prefer that they focus on a cure, but I'm fine if they also have an optional vax for those who choose it.

[Guest]

Hypothetical situation--two virgins marry. She had kissed 4 boys, he had kissed one girl prior to marriage. They are faithfully married for 20 years when he dies/runs away/abducted by aliens. She decides to move on with her life. Should she get the shots before "moving on"?

[Joules]

Hypothetical situation--two virgins marry. She had kissed 4 boys, he had kissed one girl prior to marriage. They are faithfully married for 20 years when he dies/runs away/abducted by aliens. She decides to move on with her life. Should she get the shots before "moving on"?

An article on just that:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/left-out-why-is-it-so-hard-for-older-women-to-get-the-hpv-vaccine/258611/

[Guest]

Hypothetical situation--two virgins marry. She had kissed 4 boys, he had kissed one girl prior to marriage. They are faithfully married for 20 years when he dies/runs away/abducted by aliens. She decides to move on with her life. Should she get the shots before "moving on"?

Yes. Even if she has to pay out of pocket. Sometimes viruses are worse to contract at an older age than as a teen- your body has a more difficult time clearing it.

[Bluegoat]

I would guess that's due to personality and not the direct result of taking safety precautions.

 

No reasonable person dismisses that seat belts save lives. Analogies are rarely perfect anyway. It's pretty clear what I'm trying to say in the context of the question being asked.

 

I don't quite understand your reasoning here.  When people say that safety improvements result in people taking more risks, of course that is because the people behave differently. 

 

It isn't that somehow a seatbelt makes things less safe.  It's that the perception of decreased risk tends to affect people's behavior.  Which is about personality I guess but that isn't really the point.

 

They've found something similar to road construction.  Road engineers used to think that wider, straighter roads and removing things like trees to improve visibility and things to crash into would improve safety.  What they have found though is that often the opposite is the case - when people feel like te road is wide and straight they go faster, and their risk increases, while if there are trees and turns and they need to pay attention to driving, they are slower and more careful.

 

I didn't suggest you weren't clear in what you are trying to say.  I just don't know that it is somehow obvious that an increased sense of safety around certain activities or choices would not affect behavior in other ways.  There is no necessary logical reason to reject the idea that it could work that way in some or maybe even many cases.  Risk perception does affect behavior, even if it is unconscious.

 

In the case of STIs, the numbers suggest that kids with more information will be more careful about protection and also are not more likely to have sex than other kids.  I suspect that there is a connection in that more informed kids usually also understand more clearly that there is risk even if they use protective measures.  But if you simply shifted their sense of risk, it might be different.  Getting a vaccination because it is just done is more passive though than learning about birth control and STI risk.  So it's possible to speculate that kids who simply receive a vaccination with no other explicit information might make an less accurate risk assessment.

[Bluegoat]

Actually, from your description it was probably diphtheria.  That one was infamous for killing all or most of a family's children.

I agree it sounds more like diptheria, but I remember it being chickenpox.  But my memory may well be contamiated here for some reason.

[MamaBearTeacher]

Can HPV be contracted in other ways? I seem to remember hearing toilet seats. What about trying on a bathing suit that might have recently been tried on by someone with HPV? Or jeans or leggings? if 50 percent of the population have it, did they all get it through sex? Can it be transmit from mother to child?

[Guest]

Can HPV be contracted in other ways? I seem to remember hearing toilet seats. What about trying on a bathing suit that might have recently been tried on by someone with HPV? Or jeans or leggings? if 50 percent of the population have it, did they all get it through sex? Can it be transmit from mother to child?

 

I would consider toilet seats unlikely. With bathing suit bottoms I wouldn't say impossible, but I would worry more about other things like scabies or crabs being transmitted that way. (I personally would never try on a bathing suit without undergarments on myself.) I don't think trying on clothes is an avenue of risk.

 

Mother to child while in utero is what is referred to as vertical transmission, and yes that's possible in certain circumstances. 

[Pen]

No why would they.  That's not a fact and I would never tell them that.

 

What other forms of cervical cancer? 

 

To my understanding there are around 30% of cervical cancers from strains of virus that are not what the HPV vax targets (the HPV vac targets only some of the over 100 strains of HPV). Also around 1% that are non-HPV.

[Pen]

Okay, maybe not the best analogy, but my point remains the same.

 

We don't falsify what vaccines do and cannot do. He knows they aren't fail safe; it's one component of several that helps protect us.

 

It would never occur to me that a vaccine might encourage risky behaviour in some people.

 

Eta: if I'm understanding your question correctly, wouldn't it be akin to driving recklessly because you're wearing a seat belt? It seems to me that most people understand that a seatbelt can't prevent all injury or even death, but it certainly does prevent a lot and certainly is worth doing.

 

 

I've known people to drive in a manner I would consider unsafe (and in one case that resulted in a serious accident, so not just my personal view) due to believing that having all wheel drive cars or special tires made them safer in snow or ice than was actually the case.

[Slartibartfast]

dbl post 

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by Slartibartfast

[Slartibartfast]

Actually, from your description it was probably diphtheria.  That one was infamous for killing all or most of a family's children.

 

Measles is the leading cause of childhood blindness around the world.

 

She was probably talking about measles. 

Edited October 27, 2016 by Slartibartfast