HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark • Hacker News Board

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#101

Post by matthewmacleod » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

nephihaha wrote: post #54

ulfw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a truly sad life

Not as sad as catching something which will damage you physically, sterilise them or even kill them. People don't want to hear this obviously. But it is a fact STI transmission has skyrocketed since the so called sexual revolution of the late sixties. Within fifteen years, we has an AIDS epidemic.

But it is a fact STI transmission has skyrocketed since the so called sexual revolution of the late sixties

It’s the opposite of a fact. Gonorrhoea rates as an example rose significantly in the 1960s, but are now lower than in the 1940s and 1950s. This is thanks to good public health measures.

Start by making sure you’re accurately informed.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#102

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #85

jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They acknowledge it isn't fully effective. They acknowledge that there may be a small risk of side effects. And they tell people it's worth it and to go take it. Those are basic bits of knowledge that apply to most vaccinations. The problem is that the quacks diminish the positive effects, exaggerate the negatives and engage in a campaign of fear mongering that costs some people (and in some cases lots of people, s…

But maybe you have fallen into a trap? Maybe believing in crystals is their own damn fault rather that jailing “influencers” for inducing wrong-think.

People are gullible. Those that prey on the gullible are culpable, the gullible have problems enough as it is.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#103

Post by CalRobert » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

actionfromafar wrote: post #96

CalRobert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celibacy isn’t great either. Also I’d really prefer my daughters not get cancer no matter their sex lives.

That last line is key. Not everyone thinks like that, unfortunately.

The weird thing is all these people commenting who seem opposed to vaccination so that people are afraid to have sex.

I mean if you support lifelong monogamy or similar sure, you do you, but I don’t think more dead people is a good thing to advocate to promote your lifestyle choice.

I used to know a lot more people like that and I swear half of them left the church and had a hoe phase despite earlier professed beliefs.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#104

Post by codesnik » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #99

elric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, a male, got vaccinated with the Gardasil 9 vaccine shortly before turning 40. Convincing my doctor to prescribe it wasn't terribly difficult, I told them a few things about my sexual history and explained some of my sexual plans, and that was that. I wish more people would get vaccinated.

Best of luck, the reason it took so long for males to be approved for Gardasil use and they slowly keep pushing it up by age is two fold: 1) if you've ever been exposed to HPV already, then the vaccine is useless 2) there is no test to determine if a male has been exposed, although there is one for females so they just push the ages up by probability, over time. As the probability of a man being with an older and the…

this is what I don't understand, why is it useless? there're multiple variants, vaccination could create reaction to a different part of the virus, etc.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#105

Post by elric » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #99

elric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, a male, got vaccinated with the Gardasil 9 vaccine shortly before turning 40. Convincing my doctor to prescribe it wasn't terribly difficult, I told them a few things about my sexual history and explained some of my sexual plans, and that was that. I wish more people would get vaccinated.

Best of luck, the reason it took so long for males to be approved for Gardasil use and they slowly keep pushing it up by age is two fold: 1) if you've ever been exposed to HPV already, then the vaccine is useless 2) there is no test to determine if a male has been exposed, although there is one for females so they just push the ages up by probability, over time. As the probability of a man being with an older and the…

> 1) if you've ever been exposed to HPV already, then the vaccine is useless

This is patently incorrect. The vaccine protects against 9 variants. Having been exposed to all 9 before vaccination sounds like really bad luck.

> 2) there is no test to determine if a male has been exposed, although there is one for females

The female HPV tests, as I understand, only test for the presence of HPV in the cervix. It can be present in many other areas. No one is testing women for the presence of HPV on their hands or in their throats.

Most places now offer HPV vaccines to young boys as well. People over 40 more or less missed the boat, but they can still get vaccinated. How useful it is depends entirely on their personal circumstances and risk profiles.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#106

Post by oblio » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #74

formerly_proven wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Sooner is better, but vaccination can be done at any age. Guidelines often lag behind, but vaccination makes sense even if you are currently HPV-positive. However, the vaccination is expensive (~1k) and it is difficult to find doctors who will do non-recommended vaccinations for self-payers. YCMV

> However, the vaccination is expensive (~1k) Depends entirely on where you are and what your healthcare situation is. Mine cost me ~100eur.

This is ultimately an American site so you can assume 80%+ of comments come from a US background (I'm not American, I've just been here longer than I should have).

(even for rest-of-the-world topics)

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#107

Post by isodev » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #93

torben-friis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any issue for adult males vaccinating ? I seem to remember some mention of risk by my doctor when I asked about it, but I might be misremembering.

There is currently no vaccine that is zero risk

Life is generally not zero risk :)

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#108

Post by TuringNYC » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #86

stared wrote: post #40

I would like to add: - HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives. Unless you plan to remain completely celibate, you are likely to contract a strain. - Sooner is better, but vaccination can be done at any age. Guidelines often lag behind, but vaccination makes sense even if you are currently HPV-positive. While it won't clear an existing infection, it protects…

>> HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives. This statistic seems to be used by some people to avoid the vaccine - they figure they've already had it at some point. The biggest problem with that logic is that not all strains are as dangerous and they probably have not contracted 16 or 18 specifically. The other problem is there's still a good number of people…

>>>>> HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives. >> This statistic seems to be used by some people to avoid the vaccine - they figure they've already had it at some point. The biggest problem with that logic is that not all strains are as dangerous and they probably have not contracted 16 or 18 specifically. The other problem is there's still a good number of people who have never had it and shouldn't assume they have because its common.

As people cite these statistics, it would be useful to distinguish exposure to HPV causing foot warts, etc from the much more dangerous variants. I rarely see any statistics do this sort of segmentation.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#109

Post by potato3732842 » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #100

potato3732842 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably have gotten away with it a decade ago but that is a very poor plan in the far more critical of public health world of today. Statistically nobody even knows a guy who knows a guy who's dick fell off. Serious HPV problems for men are not even common enough to be viable urban legend. You have less to back up your DARE messaging than DARE did. It's just not gonna work. The nanosecond someone who took…

Apparently HPV is responsible for some ~70% of throat cancers and ~30% of penile cancers in men. Seems pretty significant to me. If nobody knows a guy who knows a guy who had penile cancer, that's probably because people are very bad about talking about genital health. I'm sure some of the men in my life have issues with erectile dysfunction, enlarged prostates, hemmorrhoids, etc. But no one is talking about those is…

And how many men get throat and penile cancers vs other cancers and health issues? There's a reason old men crack jokes about prostate health, erectile dysfunction and incontinence rather than their dicks falling off and are way more worried about colon cancer than rectal cancer.

I didn't say it wasn't a significant source of cancer. I said that nobody knows a guy who knows a guy who's dick fell off or some other extreme outcome. Without enough of that to back up your messaging it just won't work. You need to be honest with people, not try and scare them like you're trying to keep school kids from smoking weed in 1990.

The public messaging you're trying to engage in could perhaps have skated by in a less critical time but in the current environment it will be counterproductive.

I don't want my kid or my grandkid to get measles or some other "of immediate consequence" disease because they go to school with a bunch of unvaccinated kids because you people sullied the reputation of public health via "just push the truth a little, it'll make them take the vaccine" type endeavors.

Re: HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark

#110

Post by timr » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

stared wrote: post #40

I would like to add: - HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives. Unless you plan to remain completely celibate, you are likely to contract a strain. - Sooner is better, but vaccination can be done at any age. Guidelines often lag behind, but vaccination makes sense even if you are currently HPV-positive. While it won't clear an existing infection, it protects…

> While it won't clear an existing infection, it protects against different strains and reinfection (typically body removed HPV in 1-2 years). See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38137661/

The study you've quoted here is not definitive evidence of the claim you're making, and that claim is...let's just say that it's controversial. Conventional wisdom is that you're unlikely to benefit from HPV vaccination unless you have not already seroconverted for at least one of the 9 strains (6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, 58) in the current vaccine.

There's not much hard evidence to suggest that vaccination for HPV has strong ability to protect you from a strain after you've already been infected with that strain [1], as the best available data shows a substantial decline in efficacy for women over age 26 and for women of any age who had prior documented infection [2]. This study is small, unrandomized, and the measured primary outcome (anti-HPV IgG) doesn't really tell you anything about relative effectiveness at clearing an infection. The only real evidence they advance for this claim is:

> Persistent HPV infection after vaccination was significantly less frequent in the nine-valent vaccinated group (23.5%) compared to the control group (88.9%; p ...but again, this is a small, unrandomized trial. We don't know how these 60 people differ from the typical HPV-positive case. You can't rely on this kind of observational data to claim causality.

Vaccination is great, but let's not exaggerate or spread inaccurate claims in a fit of pro-vaccine exuberance. The HPV vaccine has age range recommendations [3] for a reason.

[1] For the somewhat obvious reason that your immune system has already seen the virus.

[2] See tables 2 and 3 here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8706722/

It's also worth calling out table 4, which shows the (IMO bad) efficacy data for biological men, which is why I only talk about women, above, and why anyone who recommends vaccination without mentioning this factor is not being entirely forthright. Few people are rushing to give older men the HPV vaccine because it's not really supported by data!

[3] I believe the current guideline is under age 45 in the USA.