David. Here is what I know to be fact TODAY, as you understand OCF and others are sponsoring research that is going to further elucidate the "don't knows" about HPV, but that will reveal itself over a period of years, not immediately.

This is the best guess based on how our immune system works in most disease. Its ability to recognize something and deal with it is a function of genetics, (an ever changing part of evolution) and later in life, the robustness of its ability, which declines over time. (If it didn't we'd likely all live to be over 100) Those of us that are anglo saxon descendants of Europeans, have ancestors that survived the black plague which killed 2/3rd's of the entire European population at a period in time in which there was NO medicine as we think of it today, and we all have a genetic predisposition to be protected from that disease. Our ancestors were the 1/3rd that survived the plague. They survived not because of any treatments but because of some genetic protection that gave them an immune system that did so, not because of any treatments/medicines available. It was the luck of the gene pool drawing.

Just like that example, there are individuals that have a predisposition to be protected from, or susceptible to, getting HPV. So like in other diseases, genetics plays a huge role. Those protected will continue to be protected, those not, continue to be not. You and I are in the not group. Just remember that genetics, is the baseline controller of evolution, and from generation to generation, genetic qualities that perpetuate the strongest of the species continue to dominate. Having said that, here's a wrench in the works for you. The genetic predisposition to be protected from the black plague, hundreds of years later (today) makes us vulnerable to a different antagonist. So what allowed our ancestors to survive one of the worst catastrophes in history, now makes us vulnerable to something completely different. Thanks a lump evolution..... Megan can tell you what new disease this is if you are interested, I just had her read a book on this so she would have a basic understanding of evolution and genetics.

There is no physical evidence of the "goes dormant" idea in HPV. Some doctors and researchers just believe it because it is not uncommon for viruses to do this. But published evidence of the "theory" does not exist. That would mean we could find it in its dormant state in our bodies like we can with herpes virus, which lives in its dormant state on the ganglion of your nerves.

But it is just as common for viruses to be controlled by our immune systems. The flu that we get is controlled in many variations by antibodies that our immune system builds against it. The crumby thing is, that virus mutates into something new every year, and the antibody that you developed last year, isn't necessarily any good to defend you this year. Hence annual vaccines/flu shots. So your second part of that question - what allows it to awaken, is a mute point, since we don't know that it goes dormant for sure. If it does, like HSV1 or 2, it is fluctuations in our immune system's strength that allow it to return. You get HSV cold sores about the time you get the seasonal flu etc.

The vaccine (the current two) only works in people that have not been exposed. You body's ability to build an anti-body to it is not possible once you have been exposed, so getting the vaccine after that point in time does nothing. This is why they (FDA) cut the age of getting it off at 26, since they mathematically figure that sexually active young adults will have been exposed by that point in time. Not 100% factual, but an assumption that was reasonable. Given its own devices, Merck would be selling it to 60 year olds.

There are people working on a new vaccine that would work in people that have been exposed, and there has been some promising early work, but nothing near bringing to market in the near future.