HPV Vaccinations: It's Not Just For Girls Anymore!

Truth be told, the vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV) hasn't been just for girls for a while now.  Over the last two years, there's been in effect a "permissive" recommendation to offer the HPV vaccine to 11-12yo boys in addition to the better known "routine" recommendation for girls.  

However, in a far reaching press conference, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention announced two days ago that their Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) now recommends routinely vaccinating 11-12yo boys against HPV in an attempt to prevent certain specific HPV-related cancers in men and women in the future.

But talk about leaping out of the proverbial pan and into the fire.  Not everyone is convinced about the utility, much less safety, of HPV vaccinations for girls for cancer prevention and here we go mandating it for boys, too.  And it doesn't help when a presidential candidate claims that this vaccine causes mental retardation.  Worse, it's not only the celebrities who're associated with the anti-vaccine movement, but a newer generation of physicians are more skeptical about vaccinations in general, too.  At least the ACIP is no longer being sexist, I suppose, in making its recommendation.

Beyond that, a study published last week in Pediatrics noted that less than half the age-appropriate girls surveyed have initiated the 3 shot series and of those who started the vaccination series, barely half actually completed it.  Luckily, a study published online last month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that perhaps we can get away with two or perhaps even just one.

On the other hand, a study published earlier this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology linked HPV to heart disease in women.  This is in addition to even more evidence published online this month in the Jounral of Clinical Oncology associating HPV with an increase in oropharyngeal cancer.  And a study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the HPV vaccine decreases the risk of pre-cancerous lesions in homosexual men.

The one bit of good news coming out of this is that insurance companies are more likely to pick up the cost of this relatively expensive vaccine that currently runs $100-130/shot for a 3 shot series.  Others might argue that $300-390 is cheap protection against cancer.  Time will tell how this plays out.  By the way, the CDC still has to approve the ACIP recommendations but it's very rare, if ever, that they ignore them.

For those of  you who like conspiracy theories and don't like Big Pharma, the devil is in the details as this ACIP recommendation only applies to the quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil) manufactured by Merck, not the bivalent version (Cervarix) produced by GlaxoSmithKline.  You'll have to read the transcript very carefully (which by the way, was not at all easy to find) to note the repeated reference only to the quadrivalent vaccine as confirmed at the end of the press conference.  For reasons that are not clear to me (read money), GSK has elected not to seek approval for use of their product in men.  And when you get bored, check out the online rhetoric being tossed back & forth between those who support vaccinations and those who don't.  It's amazingly & sadly full of vitriol.

Follow @alvinblin
Tweet