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

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

#281
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The doctor likely didn't recommend it because GP is 40 years old. Most people's sex lives is comparatively... boring at that age.

The bigger issue is that someone who is 40 has likely already been exposed. I know women who had to ask to get it in their late 20's, and only succeeded after convincing the doctor they had been celibate up to that point. Apparently such a thing is relatively rare.

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

#282
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently no vaccine that is zero risk

What's the risk of a vaccine? What could happen?

Any infection risks sensitizing the immune system against some aspect of the human body. More likely with more severe infections, but not even a pseudo-infection is completely immune from it as it's a property of the immune system, not of the vaccine. The risk is very low, not zero.

(And dengue fever has the nasty property of making subsequent infections worse--and the vaccine does the same thing. Thus you get the really weird risk balance of only vaccinating those who have already had it. Also, Covid is prone to causing myocarditis--and the vaccine carries a small risk of doing the same thing. AFIAK no vaccine caused case is serious, though.)

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

#283
post #279
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…

> Unless you plan to remain completely celibate, Or you (and your future partner) practice abstinence until you're ready to commit to a lifelong monogamous relationship.

Yeah, one downside to giving this vaccine to your kids is you're basically telling them you expect they won't do this, even if they plan to (and you planned to, and in fact did). But pediatricians talk about how you really have to do it young, before they're going to be sexually active, and how it's hard to get later (not entirely true, as demonstrated by the comments here).

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

#284
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…

For those men wondering whether they should get vaccinated: - HPV causes genital warts, HPV is permanent, doctors won't test you for HPV unless you demand it, and the tests aren't reliable, which is why they literally won't diagnose you unless you already have genital warts. - Once you are confirmed HPV positive (again, you won't be confirmed without getting genital warts), you need to inform your partners, as it cau…

You are giving some honestly really bad and dangerous info.

The HPV strains that cause cancer and the ones that cause genital warts are different. The strains that cause cancer do not cause warts.

So you can very much have HPV without genital warts.

And conversely, while having genital warts tells you you are infected with the low risk strains, it does not guarantee you that it is the only strain you are carrying.

Thus you cannot rely on the presence of genital warts to know if you are or are not infected with the high risk strains, they are completely uncorellated.

The cancer-causing strains cause no symptoms and can only be detected by getting tested for them.

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

#285
post #110
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…

The age 45 bit isn't actually a guideline. Rather, finding naive but at risk individuals over 45 is quite difficult. They did not test it on anyone over 45, thus the FDA approval cuts off at 45.

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

#286
post #166

I don’t get it. Everyone online gives advice like “Ask your doctor to get the vaccine even if you’re male” but the pharmacies here in SF refused to give it to me. They said that it’s not indicated for a 35+ yo male. So I get the theory of this thing. But has anyone actually tried this? Finally I got OneMedical to prescribe it for me for some $1.2k at which point I decided I’ll just get it abroad during some planned t…

> I decided years ago I’d do this because I was going to have girls and I wanted to minimize my daughters’ risk of cancer.

I don't understand: how would your daughters be more/less likely to get cancer based on whether you were vaccinated? There's obviously the (hopefully extremely) roundabout way in which there is a direct path of sexual partners leading from you to your future daughters, but is there something else I'm missing?

And if you don't have it by age 35 (and married, per your comment below), how likely are you to even get it at this point? Are you thinking you could hypothetically pass it to them by kissing your babies on the mouth, after contracting it in the future?

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

#287
post #196

This is one of the many reasons I think medicine is full of people who are good at memorizing but are outright stupid when it comes to problem solving and logic.

I wanted an HPV vaccine when i was younger. As a male, I was told "no", even though it causes the most common throat cancer in men, and was linked to prostate cancer. Stupid.

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

#288
post #166

I don’t get it. Everyone online gives advice like “Ask your doctor to get the vaccine even if you’re male” but the pharmacies here in SF refused to give it to me. They said that it’s not indicated for a 35+ yo male. So I get the theory of this thing. But has anyone actually tried this? Finally I got OneMedical to prescribe it for me for some $1.2k at which point I decided I’ll just get it abroad during some planned t…

> I decided years ago I’d do this because I was going to have girls and I wanted to minimize my daughters’ risk of cancer. I don't understand: how would your daughters be more/less likely to get cancer based on whether you were vaccinated? There's obviously the (hopefully extremely) roundabout way in which there is a direct path of sexual partners leading from you to your future daughters, but is there something else…

The vaccine is likely to do very little damage to me, but cervical cancer is a big bad. I think I'm just accounting for some risk that we discover a non-sexual mode of transmission.

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

#289
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lots of viruses are really oncogenic." Hmm. Compared to what measurement? Most viruses are actually not oncogenic. From cancer causes, oncogenic viruses are thought to be responsible for about 12% of human cancers worldwide: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/14/7/797 From what I remember, most viruses are not oncogenic in nature, so I am unsure whether the statement made is correct.

15-20% cancers are caused by viral infections, probably more. E.g. EBV is strongly associated with several lymphomas. There are other significant clinical associations for HPV, HBV, HCV, HTLV-1, HHV-8, and many others.

Personally, I suspect it's a lot more. The % of cancers of viral origin feels a lot like a growth curve to me--and growth curves flatten out gently.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, no matter how good the data is, some societies will value opinions of uninformed celebrities above facts and reason, leading to a resurgence of preventable diseases.

The numbers are quite solid. People who don't want to accept the numbers, need to come up with an explanation why the data can not be trusted. With regard to oncogenic HPV, I think the data is very convincing. To me it was a lot more convincing than the SARS covid datapoints (e. g. the media constantly shifted; I noticed this with regard to Sweden, which had a bad early data due to barely any protection of the elderl…

Covid data didn't keep shifting except in the early time before we understood it.

Your comparison of Sweden vs Austria has a problem: Covid did more damage in warmer climates. Thus this proves nothing about policy. Look to others more similar--Sweden didn't fare well.

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