Is there any value in having the Gardasil course after a HPV+ cancer diagnosis and treatment?

The vaccine is not effective in people that have already been exposed to the virus. Here in the US the cut off year for getting the shot is about age 26. The consensus is that by that point in time you have had enough sexual partners to have gotten the virus because it is so common. The good news is that for 99% of the people that develop an oral HPV16 infection, it will not cause anything to happening them� the other 1% of them, well we're here on the forum! So the recommended age for vaccination is between about 10 and 12 when children are pre sexual.

I spoke for quite a while with my doctor about this. He explained to me that the injection is designed to build "herd immunity" by slowly stopping new cases of infection with girls, who then cannot pass it to the men they have sex with.

And to think I used to grouse about my GP wanting to dose my daughter. "Needless medicine" I used to say. I learned my lesson.

As we all know, cervical cancer is only one of the cancers that HPV16 is capable of causing. Herd immunity will only start to take place in cervical cancer when more than 75% of a population have been protected. But remember even if the conversation is only about cervical, men are vectors of the virus to women. We give it to them and are part of the problem, so gender based vaccination even in cervical is a dumb idea; just because boys don't have a cervix they add to the the rate at which infection occurs.

In our own disease men are getting HPV+ oral cancer at a 4 to 1 rate over women, so men also need to get vaccinated for their own protection. but the whole issue of herd immunity is based on both genders not one.

Australia looks like it will be the first country in the world to reach HPV16-18 herd immunity because of their progressive ideas about vaccinating all school children at the appropriate age. Canada and the UK are not far behind and even Mexico will close in on this long before the US. We have talked here often about the obstacles to getting this done in the US, but we are at a pathetic 34% of girls and 2% of boys vaccinated.

It is good to see this recent article from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation with this information;

�These are exciting times in the science of HPV and the world can confidently look forward to the virtual elimination of genital warts, recurrent laryngeal papilloma, most genital cancers, and some 60% of head and neck cancers.�


Vaccine decreases pre-cancerous symptoms in Aussie women by 93%

Gabriele