Human papilloma virus, or HPV, is fun to pronounce but not fun to get. As we learned in class, HPV is a potentially cancer-causing naked DNA virus. There are at least 100 different strains of HPV with 40 of them associated with gross genital warts. An HPV infection can be deadly but do not fear, vaccines are here!
I’ve been seeing so many news articles and TV ads on HPV lately, which is great because more people should be informed about this potentially deadly (but preventable) virus. There are a few reasons why HPV is so dangerous; as we discussed in class, some strains of HPV can cause cervical or oral cancer because of oncogenic genes they possess, symptoms of an HPV infection are often asymptomatic (like you literally don’t know you have i), and the fact that HPV can infect any mucosal tissue in the body. I don’t know about you, but I’ve aways thought HPV was a sexually transmitted disease only, but surprisingly it doesn’t just end there. You can get HPV through merely coming in contact with lesions and if thats not good enough, HPV can affect pretty much any mucosal tissue (genital, mouth, throat, or pretty much any lining in the body), which means condoms won’t cut it and forget about oral sex with an HPV positive partner. Yikes.
The Vaccine!
Lucky for us, there is a preventative measure we can take to protect ourselves and our lovers from HPV– vaccination! The HPV vaccine (Gardasil) should be administered before an individual comes in contact with the virus in order to prevent the evil virus from causing much harm to the person. This vaccine, like many others, saves lives
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of talk and hesitancy toward the HPV vaccine in the news lately by parents. According to a recent article by Johns Hopkins Medicine, many parents are hesitant to allow their children this vaccine. The article mentions that according to the American Sexual Health Association, up to 80 percent of sexually active Americans will be infected with HPV sometime in their lives. That’s why researches are curious to understand why parent’s are hesitant and what can be done to combat this. The article mentions a study in which parents were asked open-ended questions regarding this vaccine. The top concern of all parent’s was that this vaccine would “encourage or support youth sexual activity”. While I highly agree with the idea that this vaccine may encourage sexual activity in youth, I also think that its better to be safe than sorry. In all cases with vaccines, the benefits outweigh the harms and administering it can prevent many cases of the infection. Even having youths/adolescents take part in clinical trials studying this vaccine is hesitated by parents. According to a 2017 NCBI article, studies found that most parents of adolescents are not willing to have their teens involved in an HPV vaccine clinical trial with many predictors of this hesitancy including the parent’s age and their number of sexual partners. . In a 2013 JAMA Network article, a trial was administered the asses the ideal dosage of the vaccine in young adolescence and young women. In short, this trial found that based on antibody durability, more doses (3 as oppose to 2) should be given but still, more studies should be conducted to ensure this conclusion. This trial is yet another justification for getting the HPV vaccine; nevertheless, all clinical trials that have been done on this vaccine that I’ve read about have shown that the vaccine does more good than harm to any given group of people. AKA get vaccinated people!
Microbiology for Smarties 