Vaccine for HPV could save thousands of lives

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The food and drug administration has approved a vaccine to prevent the human papilloma virus or HPV, which is the cause in the majority of cases of cervical cancer. When taken into consideration the statistics are astounding: over thirty million people have HPV and nearly six million new cases are reported each year. Approximately one half of all sexually active people will contract genital HPV at some point in their lives, and nearly ten million sexually active teens have genital HPV right now.

Not all cases of HPV will cause cervical cancer, in fact around ninety percent of cases will just go away on their own, some of which will show no signs or symptoms at all, genital warts are the most common symptom and may indicate the presence of HPV, but not necessarily any progression to cervical cancer. Women can be diagnosed with HPV by a pap test, but though men can have the virus there is no test to diagnose them at this time. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease.

An estimated ten thousands case of cervical cancer will be diagnosed this year, and thirty-seven hundred women will die as a result of cervical cancer this year. There is no cure for cervical cancer and the treatments available are limited.

In the middle of 2006 the food and drug administration approved the use of Gardisil, a new vaccine that prevents four types of HPV. Two of the types of HPV are responsible for approximately seventy percent of the cases of cervical cancer worldwide; the other two are responsible for an estimated ninety percent of cases of genital warts.

Research has shown that the vaccine is effective in its cause to stop the most dangerous forms of HPV, but what isn’t known yet is exactly how long the vaccine will continue to protect, best estimates put the protection at around five years. This would make girls in their early to late teens, just prior to engaging in sexual activity, to be the most likely candidates to receive the vaccine.

There are however two problems: the vaccine is not very cheap, and in some peoples eyes there is a moral dilemma.

The vaccine is very new and it’s currently unknown whether it will be covered, or to what extent it will be covered by most insurance companies. The cost would put it out of reach of most middle class families in the US, amongst who would be the girls most likely in need of the vaccine, and it goes without saying that impoverished girls from foreign countries in desperate need would go unvaccinated as well.

The moral dilemma comes to light in the belief that people should wait to be sexually active until they are married, which in this day and age is an antiquated notion and more wishful thinking than anything with grounds in reality. Doctors can only dispense birth control to underage patients without parental consent, they cannot yet administer a vaccination with consent, and in the minds of several people consenting to the vaccination is also consenting to sexual activity.

Regardless of the few obstacles of cost and worry delaying the progress, this is an incredible advancement in medicine and with the proper government funding and some real world education on the threats of HPV to concerned parents, this vaccine could begin to save thousands of lives a year – starting now.