Vaccinating boys as well as girls against cancer-causing hpv

[Terrafirma]

Sharing a link ... this sounds like important progress towards eventually protecting everyone on the planet from cancer-causing hpv infections and the consequent risks of some genital and head and neck cancers in both women and men :) I'm staying right out of US politics here but I do hope that in the US the currently contentious politics of the issue of hpv vaccinations does not unduly interfere with either the reporting of this issue in their media, or the continuing roll-out of the vaccine to girls and young women, and to boys and young men soon. Panel: Boys should get routine vaccine for HPV www.msnbc.msn.com U.S. vaccine advisers Tuesday voted to recommend that boys should be routinely vaccinated with Merck & Co's Gardasil vaccine to protect them from human papillomavirus or HPV infections, which cause genital warts and oral, penile and anal cancers in boys and men, and cervical cancers in women. .... " One substantial addition needs to be made to the following words in the article's summary above "... which cause genital warts and oral, penile and anal cancers in boys and men, and cervical cancers in women" should read "genital warts and oropharyngeal, penile, peritoneal and anal cancers in boys and men, and cervical cancers and oropharyngeal, vulval, vaginal, peritoneal and anal cancers in women", or words to that effect. If you would like to explore the subject further, there is a very good article on the Oral Cancer Foundation website http://oralcancer.org on the page http://oralcancer.org/hpv/index.htm It includes an embedded 11 minute podcast produced by Johns Hopkins Medicine, which you can also access on its original webpage here http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/audio/podcasts/GillisonPod.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4cdeb6620f8568f5,0 It's one of the best media items on research into the link between hpv and oral cancer I've found. Johns Hopkins are among the leaders in research into the link between hpv and some head and neck cancers. An important scientific paper on this subject, "Oropharyngeal cancer epidemic and human papillomavirus", is reproduced on the website of the Oral Cancer Foundation, on this page: http://oralcancernews.org/wp/oropharyngeal-cancer-epidemic-and-human-papillomavirus/ Cheers, Ed.

[Terrafirma]

Re the article I quoted from the msnbc.msn.com website, today I can't locate it anywhere on their site, so here's another link that goes to the same or a very similar article "Panel Endorses HPV Vaccine for Boys of 11 By GARDINER HARRIS Published: October 25, 2011" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/health/policy/26vaccine.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=hpv&st=cse Cheers - Ed.

[SILLY]

I wonder when Australia will do this.

[Gabe]

You may find this article on the OCF site interesting. I have been a member for many years using same nick. http://oralcancernews.org/wp/hpv-vaccine-recommended-for-boys-aged-11-to-12-years/

[Terrafirma]

It may be a while Silly. I found the following article on the ABC website on the page http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2011/06/16/3218788.htm "Boys and the cervical cancer vaccine by Rebecca Jenkins A proposal for a national program to immunise boys with the cervical cancer vaccine was recently knocked back. So should parents pay for their sons to be immunised? Published 16/06/2011" Nevertheless I'm thinking that maybe the issue to knock the proposal back could be revisited reasonably soon as more people learn about the recent research implicating hpv as a common and rising cause of oropharangeal cancers, and the role oral sex may play in transmission. There's also the issue of men as well as women being carriers of the cancer-causing strains of hpv in the community. Also my guess is that a lot of the opposition among some members of the general public to a national program to immunize boys in Australia and elsewhere in the world is not based on the most recent findings. And in the USA the issue of vaccinating boys as well as girls is being used for some political point-scoring in the lead-up to the next Presidential elections and I really hope that doesn't happen in Australia. Thanks for posting that link Gabe! Cheers - Ed.