Should boys get the cervical cancer vaccine?

HPV, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US, affects both men and women. Could the vaccine that helps women combat HPV-related health problems also benefit men? Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From housetop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Kristen and this is Molly, So Molly, uh

(00:22):
Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast. We talk a lot
about lady things, lots of female hormones, makeup, et cetera.
But you know what, today, let's switch things around. Let's
talk about the boys, shall we. Let's hear it for
the boys. We got this great reader email from um
A listener a Gordon in Ontario, and he brought up

(00:45):
the recent backlash against the HPV vaccine that prevents UH
sexually transmitted disease HPV and therefore can help prevent cervical cancer. Gardisill,
gardisil exactly, and he thought it is interesting that a
lot of the backlash against HPV was based on the

(01:05):
idea that it would encourage girls to have sex at
a young age because they wouldn't have this risk of
catching an STD. Right, And Gordon has really just his
finger on the pulse of current events, because this is
in the news right now, but not about girls. It's
actually revolving around boys, because Mark, the company that makes
garter Sill, is trying to get Gartersil approved for boys

(01:29):
to get vaccinated. Right now, it's just for girls to
prevent this HPV, but the new development might be that
boys get vaccinated too, right, because boys can get HPV
just like girls, And since a lot of strains of
HPV don't show any immediate physical symptoms, a boy might
not know that he has HPV, and then he and

(01:49):
a lady friend might have adult relations, and then he
passes the HPV onto the girl, and then she could
actually catch a strain of HPV that could cause cervical cancer.
So it seems like boys could be an important part
of really solving this, uh this puzzle. Right, So let's
back up real quick and just go over gardasil, what
it does, what it protects against, and when it doesn't.

(02:11):
People call it frequently the cervical cancer vaccine, but it's
important to note that it's not going to protect directly
against cervical cancer, right. Gardensil is actually formulated to attack
four specific strains of HPV. The number HPV numbers six, eleven, sixteen,
and eighteen, and these are the types of HPV that
are known to potentially cause cervical cancer. So that's why

(02:34):
they call it cervical cancer vaccine. But like you said,
it's actually going after HPV. But going after cervical cancer
indirectly is no small feet because, uh, this disease affects
and kills nearly three thousand women per year. I mean,
you know, that's a lot of lives that could be saved,
which is how Garzia has been marketed to girls. The
one less campaign could be one less girl that's going

(02:54):
to get the cervical cancer. Right. And HPV is also
uh most common sexually transmitted disease right now in the US.
We have about twenty million people currently infected with it,
according to Centers for Disease Control, and about six point
two million Americans get a new HPV infection every year.

(03:15):
And you got a fifty fifty chance of catching it
if you're sexually active adult. Right. And HPV, like you know,
Christmas saying it attacks four strains and they're you know,
more than a hundred strains of this disease. And you
know one way that it might affect you would be
genital warts. That's a one way the HPV can manifest itself. Right,
And even though they're more than a hundred different types
of HPV, only just two of these strains are responsible

(03:38):
for about seventy percent of all cervical cancer cases worldwide.
So it seems like mark is really tapped into UM
a pretty powerful vaccine here, right, And their studies uphold
that is shows that it's pretty effective. UM. When they
were doing test cases, you know, they looked at nearly
nine thousand women who took guard a cell and they

(04:00):
prevented a hundred percent of certain HPV related cervical cancer. So,
I mean that's a huge step forward, a huge dent
in this process. Right, And the in the CDC actually
just finished up in two thousand and eight a post
marketing test phase to see whether or not girls taking
uh gardasil or more at risk for certain diseases, and
they concluded that there weren't any adverse side effects. So

(04:23):
it still has the approval of the f d A.
But pretty soon after the FDA approved it, there was
a little bit of a public backlash from parents who
were concerned about the young age that was being recommended
for these girls to get vaccinated. Right, the FDA was saying,
you can get the vaccination as young as nine, but
really more on the eleven to twelve year old ballpark.

(04:45):
And you know that was just for some parents, way
too young to have to explain to a kid why
they need the shot, because it's a lengthy process. It's
three vaccinations over an eight month period. I think. So
if you have to take your kid into the doctor
at the age of eleven three times to get a shot,
you know they're gonna want to know why. And so
when you start talking about cervical cancer and HPV, then
you know people felt you were setting your child up

(05:07):
to become sexually active at a very young age right
in the in the backlash really intensified when a handful
of states, including Texas in Virginia, tried to make GARDASIL
immunization required for sixth grade girls. Parents were up in arm.
Some parents at least we're up in arms over the
thought of a state forcing their young daughters to be

(05:31):
immunized against sexually transmitted diseases, especially with the vaccine where
the side effects and the long term effects aren't very
well known, which leads us into the argument of whether
boys should get this vaccine because now that we're talking
about boys potentially getting it. The risk are becoming much
more the focus of the conversation, not so much the
issue of promiscuity, but the fact that maybe this vaccine

(05:53):
isn't safe for everyone, right, I mean, you think of
cervical cancer as a gender specific disease. You know, obviously
boys would not be able to physically get cervical cancer,
So that brings up the question of whether or not
this should be something that women should take care of exclusively.
But that also begs the question of let's say there

(06:14):
is a prostate cancer vaccine that could be available for
young girls to take. How would the public react to that?
Would we be as hesitant about boys and girls taking
a prostate cancer vaccine as we are about cervical cancer
because it's specifically uh is linked to a common std right,
it's the sex cancer, as it was described in one

(06:35):
New York Times article. So the fact that you know,
we could and you know another Arctic points that if
it was breast cancer, it wouldn't be as big a
deal to immunize everyone. But because this is, you know,
sort of seen as a consequence of sexual activity, people
are very lwery about having the whole population immunize for
it right. And cost effectiveness is another big hurdle in
this whole whole immunization debate because gardisil require yers around

(07:00):
the three separate shots over a period about eight months,
and each shot costs around a hundred and twenty dollars.
So these mothers with sons are wondering why they're going
to shell out almost four hundred dollars to get their
sons immunities against this cancer that they will never get
right to the risk and the costs outweigh the benefit
to the boys when the only benefit they're really getting

(07:22):
is uh the HPV benefit, which is not a small
potato sort of thing. I mean, they are protecting against
genital warts. But you know the big kicker with this
drag a cervical cancer. Is it worth it two boys? Right?
And I think that you have to look at the
big picture of of herd immunity if you will. That
that a New York Times article brought up um many

(07:44):
of the women who die from cervical cancer can't afford
regular gynecological exams to get PAP smears that will usually
catch it in its earlier stages. And in addition, cervical
cancer is most fatal to women who are living in poverty,
So chances are these same women are not going to
of the per pop to get gard asil. So by

(08:05):
that logic, you would think that the more people, boys
and girls you immunize, the better it's going to be
for the entire population. Right. Basically, if an immunized man
stays with an unimunized woman, the infection still steps there
because of the immunization and people, I guess when the
whole stuff with girls was going on, I didn't really
like to point out that if the girl is going
to get HPV, it was the guy who gave it

(08:27):
to her. You know, it's it takes two to tango, well,
said Molly. But one thing that people are still questioning
about garden sils. Some parents are still questioning, is this
issue of safety. It's a relatively new vaccine. Vaccines don't
have the best reputation right now. People are kind of
freaked out by them, but it hasn't been on the

(08:48):
market long enough to know what the long term effects
are of these. You know, twelve year old girls getting immunized, right,
and if you do any sort of internet starts, you're
gonna come up with tons of pairs saying that after
a Gardosil vaccine their daughter came down with something. And
this is where, of course, any argument about vaccines is tricky,
because you're getting into correlation versus causation, where you know,

(09:11):
people get a shot and then something turns up later
and they wonder is this related to the shot? But
you know there are a few conditions Mark. Of course,
Mark says it's perfectly safe. But if you do a
quick search, the most common things that will come up
that might be results of gardisil are seizures, paralysis, fainting um.
There's one girl who died from a form of Luke

(09:33):
Garrick's disease that they're trying to tie to gardossil. So
you know, Mark is constantly evaluating it safety, as is
the Food and Drug Administration. But when you've got these
kind of risks, then of course someone who's only going
to get the secondary benefits of this vaccine is questioning
whether they should, you know, expose themselves to that. Right,
it seems like we still have a little ways to
go in terms of testing for gardenssil to really call

(09:56):
parents fears about whether or not it actually is safe.
But when it comes to boys, it might be marketed
as this, you know, really chivalrous thing to do. You know,
this guy is getting vaccinated against cervical cancer. He's saving women.
I know, the shot throw that on a date. I mean,
it's it's pretty compelling. I mean, I don't know if
a ten year old boy is really going to buy

(10:16):
into that marketing so much, but hey, good work, right, So,
if you want to learn more about the cervical cancer vaccine,
I know where you can find out. I'm gonna guess
it's how stuff works dot com. Milly, You're right, Kristen,
and if you have any comments or questions, be sure
to email Christen me at mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of

(10:40):
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