Margaret,
No your brain is not frozen yet. A Advisory Committee of the FDA did recommend the vaccine be given to boys and men ages 9 through 26 but based it's recommendation of Merck's application submitted on ONLY genital warts caused by
HPV 6 and 11. The FDA will consider it's committee's recommendation sometime before years end and then it will become official.
Getting the vaccine approved for boys for ANYTHING is better than nothing and since the vaccine has proven effective against
HPV 16 and 18, those that cause the cancers we are concerned with, then getting the vaccine will eliminate those strains and anything that they could have caused post infection.
Also keep in mind that we couldn't have waited for Merck or anyone for that matter to prove to the FDA that the vaccine works in preventing say oral cancer as that would have taken decades for them to vaccinate thousands of 9 to 26 year old males today and then wait and see what happens when they turned 50 or 60. I would have been 102 and doubt Moffitt would have asked me to represent the life threat of a male acquiring cancer from the
HPV virus.
Thanks Brian for your confidence BUT I still wish I would be watching you address this Committee rather than me. Just saying...