Your interpretation of this work is right on. I am going to the NIH/NCI on May 18th to argue alongside Dr. Gillison for a federally funded trial of the vaccines on head and neck cancers. Merck isn't interested in pursuing this - their experience so far (due to their bungled marketing of the cervical cancer use) is less than they would have hoped, and this is a 10 million dollar effort, which they do not wish to fund. GSK has shown interest in a combined private sector, federal, and non profit (OCF) funding group effort to get the answers that we need.

The science community for the most part is a big believer in the vaccines potential in oral. But since the cervix and the oropharynx are not apples and apples, there are a lot of unknowns. Given the low incidence of clinical issues from getting the vaccine, there is little down side except for the cost. Having said that, recurrences in the HPV+ group are very low compared to tobacco carcinogenesis in NEVER smokers ( not non smokers who smoked at some period of their life).

Please note that in the last two weeks we have put a number of stories about the vaccine on the OCF news feed. One about Merck's marketing failures, another about adverse events (almost none), this time being reported outside the FDA reporting system, which confirms what we knew from the FDA collection of data, that there are no more adverse events in this vaccinated group than in an unvaccinated part of the population.

I am pretty far out from my HPV+ diagnosis and treatment in December of 97. I have had many issues, but recurrence of an HPV+ squamous cell carcinoma has not been one of them.