Live data from Hacker News

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

eurosurveillance.org

131–140 of 383 posts

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

#131
post #130
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent is overstating the case. Neither infection nor vaccination provides sterilizing immunity [1], but the general reasons to prefer vaccination are (in order of descending quality of evidence & reasoning): 1) you probably haven't had all N strains yet. 2a) you likely haven't been infected with the ones that cause cancer, because they're relatively rare. 2b) ...that is especially true if you're young and not sexual…

What if you're married? Does it still make sense, if you know you won't ever be sleeping with a new partner?

A question for your doctor and your partner (and of course, you can read the data in the link I posted above and use that to influence your conversation and decision!)

I'm not being avoidant here -- medical decisions are always subjective and multi-factor, and I can't begin to tell you what you should do. (But I also sincerely believe that propagandists try to reduce nuanced data to talking points, which is equally wrong.)

Please note the caveat about gender that I just added. The data for biological men and women are very different. Also, I haven't discussed risks at all, which is the other side of the ledger -- these vaccines are pretty darned safe, but everything comes with risk, and only you can decide what level of risk is appropriate for your life.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

> I rarely see any statistics do this sort of segmentation.

There are multiple publications. THe easiest way to find is Gemini 3 Pro or ChatGPT Thinking + find for publications (go to link, not just rely on summary).

They differ by population and methodology. For example, here is "Age-specific and genotype-specific carcinogenic human papillomavirus prevalence in a country with a high cervical cancer burden: results of a cross-sectional study in Estonia", 2023, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10255022/

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

#133
post #72
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…

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.

I feel very uncomfortable trying to talk my doctor into doing something they don't recommend. I know too many people who buy into fake medical stuff.

Why is this different? Why is pestering a doctor to give me a medicine they don't recommend a good idea?

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

#134
post #130
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent is overstating the case. Neither infection nor vaccination provides sterilizing immunity [1], but the general reasons to prefer vaccination are (in order of descending quality of evidence & reasoning): 1) you probably haven't had all N strains yet. 2a) you likely haven't been infected with the ones that cause cancer, because they're relatively rare. 2b) ...that is especially true if you're young and not sexual…

What if you're married? Does it still make sense, if you know you won't ever be sleeping with a new partner?

You get to make your own health choices here, but as someone who got the vaccine in my 30s, I am glad as I didn’t know about my future divorce when I got vaccinated.

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

#135
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…

> This statistic seems to be used by some people to avoid the vaccine

The FDA itself restricted access to the vaccine on the basis of age. Given that virions aren't even involved in the production process, its safety should have been deemed good enough for the entire population early on.

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

#136
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 2) there is no test to determine if a male has been exposed, although there is one for females It is incorrect. I had it tested multiple times. It is done less routinely, usually under assumption that since it is women who are mostly at risk, why bother testing men. Which is horrible mindset in anything related to epidemiology. See: - https://www.droracle.ai/articles/607248/what-methods-are-use... - https://pmc.ncb…

> It is done less routinely, usually under assumption that since it is women who are mostly at risk, why bother testing men. Which is horrible mindset in anything related to epidemiology.

No. The general reason that people don't do the test for men is that DNA testing is extremely sensitive, and produces a lot of false positives for a virus that is widespread.

It's also not actionable. You can't treat an asymptomatic infection, and a positive leads to the same outcome they would give anyway: use physical barriers and abstinence.

(Edit: hilariously, your first link says exactly what I just wrote, at the very top of the page. Did you read it?)

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

#137
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

70% of throat cancers? In a world with cigarettes and chewing tobacco? I find that a very surprising number - so surprising it's almost unbelievable. Got a source?

Think of it as shared responsibility. The tobacco and the virus are both reasons why you got cancer and died, prizes for all.

So maybe 70% of throat cancer victims have HPV, and like 70% smoked - and if those were independent facts you'd expect that about 49% both smoked and had HPV, but it's actually more than half 'cos it turns out that if you have HPV then smoking is even worse. So that's nice.

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

#138
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think those who advocate for censorship are gullible and have fallen for the bush-league trap of believing that the state is on your side and exists to benefit you.

[flagged]

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

#139
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…

[flagged]

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

#140
post #136
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) there is no test to determine if a male has been exposed, although there is one for females It is incorrect. I had it tested multiple times. It is done less routinely, usually under assumption that since it is women who are mostly at risk, why bother testing men. Which is horrible mindset in anything related to epidemiology. See: - https://www.droracle.ai/articles/607248/what-methods-are-use... - https://pmc.ncb…

> It is done less routinely, usually under assumption that since it is women who are mostly at risk, why bother testing men. Which is horrible mindset in anything related to epidemiology. No. The general reason that people don't do the test for men is that DNA testing is extremely sensitive, and produces a lot of false positives for a virus that is widespread. It's also not actionable. You can't treat an asymptomatic…

The claim I refuted is that there are no test for men (there are). Not sure why you want to get needlessly argumentative here, repeating things I already linked (sic!).

Sure, test from penis has lower specificity and sensitivity that for cervix, but it is not binary "works or not" (as side note, just measuring from urethra is rarely enough [1]). Life is probability, and it is a huge fallacy to believe that things work 100% or 0%, nothing in between (rarely the case in medicine).

Results are actionable on many ways. Most important, screening for female partners, informed risk for partners or your on safety for ones partners (condoms BTW reduce infection rates, but do not fully protect, as HPV can be on other parts of skin).

[1]

> The overall prevalence of HPV was 65.4%. HPV detection was highest at the penile shaft (49.9% for the full cohort and 47.9% for the subcohort of men with complete sampling), followed by the glans penis/coronal sulcus (35.8% and 32.8%) and scrotum (34.2% and 32.8%). Detection was lowest in urethra (10.1% and 10.2%) and semen (5.3% and 4.8%) samples. Exclusion of urethra, semen, and either perianal, scrotal, or anal samples resulted in a https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3904649/

Post reply on HN