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HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

theguardian.com

151–160 of 188 posts

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#151
post #147

Glad to see it, except it is still a sensationalist headline IMO because HPV deaths, and specifically below 30 years old, is already extremely low.

My issue with it is a missing "in mice"-style qualifier, but this time it is of the geographical nature. The study is focusing on England: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/news/latest-news/2026/medicine-and-de...

Why does that seem important? The “in mice” one makes sense (such results might not be the same in humans), but is there a reason to think that results achieved here in England couldn’t happen elsewhere?

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#152

Glad to see it, except it is still a sensationalist headline IMO because HPV deaths, and specifically below 30 years old, is already extremely low.

I don’t think one can sensationalise the HPV vaccine enough. Cervical cancer is too common and it’s crazy that a vaccine can greatly reduce it.

If you know any women (which is obviously not a given for HN) then you know multiple women who have had cervical cancer scares or worse.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#153
post #40

My oldest daughter almost died from the first Gardasil, so you may not die from cervical cancer, but die from something else. I am not against vaccines; my kids are all fully vaccinated on a spaced-out schedule and not taking more than one shot in at least 2 months, and so am I, but the HPV vaccine was not mandatory, so, given the experience and the similar genetics, we didn't do it for the other two kids. Yeah, ther…

When you got the shot didn't they tell you about the possible side effects and what to watch for? I know for the Covid vaccine I had to sit for an hour to make sure of something not happening.

We forgot to get another vaccine shot. On the form, they ask if we want Gardasil. We declined. Then they took our daughter to administer the shots. They brought her back and started to apologize: "We're sorry, we didn't see that you declined, and we gave her the shot anyway." We could've sued them, especially with the adverse effects, but we're coming from a culture that's not overly litigious.

And this is not the first time doctors in leading Southern California medical groups have completely ignored what's on the form! My son was going to have a minor surgery, so they asked me: "Oh, we give an anesthetic before we actually administer the actual one, because some kids are afraid of shots." I told them he's one of those kids and always liked, actually, even watching when they administer the shot, and never cries. This is given he's already on IV! Another doctor came a minute later and started changing the IV. I asked him, "What are you doing?" He said he was administering the pre-anesthetic. And I said that we declined it on the form, but it was too late. Then another doctor came and started to apologize - they don't read, they assume what people want! And this was at CHOC, the most prestigious children's hospital! Of course, as I said, we didn't sue.

So, I know that you should double-check and ask exactly what they are doing. Unfortunately, you can do this only if you're present. And you should always require them to repeat what they plan to do to your kids if they are taking them away from you. And... you should sue, as commercial entities, just like people, learn best when it hurts.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#154
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The estimated number of deaths from cervical cancer in the US in 2026 is 4,200. The death rate is 2.2 per 100,000 people down from 3.1 per 100,000 in 1992. If we multiply 3.1e-5 by 50 years that's about a 0.15% chance of dying of this cancer. The HPV shots cost $500-1000 for the three shots, so the cost per life saved is about $650K. With the statistical value of a human life being about $12M this is quite cost effec…

It's not reasonable to use the rates from 30+ years ago because survival rates for all cancers have been sharply increasing for decades. You also need to consider years of life lost if you're going to look at things economically, because you're formulating things as if somebody who died of cervical cancer never existed. Cervical cancer disproportionately affects older women, even moreso than other cancers. The averag…

So use the current rate, which is 2.2 per 100,000. The argument is basically the same. The cost/benefit ratio is so good that your quibbles don't change the conclusion.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#155

I wasn't allowed to have it from the official health service because I'm already 50 even though I've not been very active in earlier years. But I paid for it myself (600€ for the 3 shots, quite expensive). I'm glad I did, when reading stuff like this. They don't usually give it to older people because the more you have been exposed to the virus the less effective the vaccine is. But it protects against 9 variants and…

It was $600 13 years ago when I got it too I paid for it out of pocket as well with a cursory understanding of the data and why it wasn’t given to men at all at the time, and then not to men in my age range before expanding to far beyond my age range This affected it being covered by insurance Even to help protect women was good enough, but I had predicted the throat cancer link as well On the self serving side, it w…

Yeah I wish I'd known about it before I got more active sexually. But I'm glad I got the vaccine eventually, I'm sure I would not have seen all variants.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not reasonable to use the rates from 30+ years ago because survival rates for all cancers have been sharply increasing for decades. You also need to consider years of life lost if you're going to look at things economically, because you're formulating things as if somebody who died of cervical cancer never existed. Cervical cancer disproportionately affects older women, even moreso than other cancers. The averag…

So use the current rate, which is 2.2 per 100,000. The argument is basically the same. The cost/benefit ratio is so good that your quibbles don't change the conclusion.

Do you understand the problem I'm describing? You are saying that women who got cervical cancer essentially died at birth. You need to look at years of life lost. Cervical cancer has a low frequency, high survivability, and disproportionately effects women in later age.

You also need to factor in the efficacy of the vaccines, which will not be 100%. The years of life lost/saved will end up most likely being in the days or weeks at most, and so the $12 million figure you pulled out of thin air, for a full lifetime, is highly inappropriate.

This also generalizes to many medical issues. For instance, contrary to what most people think, early cancer screening achieves very little in terms of life extension. Prostate cancer screening, for example, adds about 37 days to one's life expectancy. [1]

[1] - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#157

Every-time the HPV vaccine stuff comes up there’s a ton of old guys bragging about how they got it AMA. This doesn’t make you seem like a good person. It makes you seem like you don’t trust public health officials. I had this conversation with my doc. He said dont get it. Going around that doesn’t make me a good person, it makes me dumb. Don’t listen to what a forum says. Listen to your doctor.

I was lucky my pharmacist didn't listen to my doctor when I showed up with a prescription for a misdiagnosed disease. Would have delayed getting effective treatment for a life threatening disease. If I'd read forums I could've spotted it too. Don't just listen to your doctor.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#158
post #151
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with it is a missing "in mice"-style qualifier, but this time it is of the geographical nature. The study is focusing on England: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/news/latest-news/2026/medicine-and-de...

Why does that seem important? The “in mice” one makes sense (such results might not be the same in humans), but is there a reason to think that results achieved here in England couldn’t happen elsewhere?

Basically it's definitely possible that you could get cervical cancer without HPV. There's a scientific disagreement about whether in some populations that's say 5% prevalent while others it's more like 0.1% prevalent, or whether they're more similar, but it clearly can happen. Outside science this can turn into "England is very, very white, so, this is basically only a study of white women" which as you observe isn't much like the mouse studies - humans just aren't that different. There are differences, but they're not big enough to suggest this study might be a "glitch" with no relevance for your population like a mouse study could be.

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#159

Glad to see it, except it is still a sensationalist headline IMO because HPV deaths, and specifically below 30 years old, is already extremely low.

“We estimate that since its introduction, HPV vaccination has prevented nearly 200 young women from dying from cervical cancer in England.”

Given that the youngest vaccinated women are ~31 now, we would expect rates in that cohort to remain lower than in prior cohorts. But, crucially, we have to wait for this cohort to age to know for sure.

Treat this as a check-in as part of a 50-year longitudinal study that will keep yielding new data for another 40 years or so. (I don't know if it will be the same actual study, but the data will be there.)

Re: HPV vaccine cuts risk of dying from cervical cancer before 30

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you subjectively describe that number as "almost zero"? Sure. If the only effect were on under-30s, this wouldn’t be a great vaccine. What 5,000 people is good for, however, is confidently measuring decline in a cohort. Zero deaths, even against a baseline of tens, strongly implies this should cross into the tend or hundreds of thousands over the next decades in populations that keep vaccination rates up.

Looking at healthcare stuff globally is misleading because of Africa. The ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic there makes death rates for anything that HIV/AIDS can contribute to highly malinformative. For instance in southern Africa, more than 60% of women with cervical cancer also have HIV. [1] Oddly enough I can't find exact death rates from cervical cancer paired amongst those who had HIV/AIDS but this [2] hints at it, wit…

Very fair. These are UK data, and I’m unfortunately not well versed in their sources. Our American sources don’t seem to measure by age consistently enough for me to gather an estimate. If there is a comorbidity irrelevant outside Africa and rural Southeasr Asia, that will mess up the numbers.
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