Controversial Vaccine Presents Benefits Too Substantial to Ignore

Posted by admin on February 10, 2009 under cancer, Genital Warts, HPV, Vaccine | Be the First to Comment

It’s time for Mothers and Daughters to Discuss Sexually Transmitted Diseases…and Cancer Risks

The most common cause of sexually transmitted disease in the United States today is the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a virus that infects epithelial tissue of the skin, anogenital areas, and oral mucosa. Clinically, these are called warts, and the appearance varies by the location of the warts.

 

Once most commonly seen on college campuses, the virus is increasingly showing up in the nurses office of junior high and high schools – exposing a larger and younger population to the long-term…life-threatening risks.

There are over 100 types of HPV viruses – different strains infecting different locations. Some HPV strains of HPV causing anogenital warts can cause cancer and precancerous lesions.

HPV Types 6 and 11 can cause the majority of genital warts (condyloma accuminata), and HPV Types 16 and 18 cause 70 percent of cervical cancers in women.

Anogenital warts are highly contagious. In men, the wart looks like a cauliflower like lesion, but when women are infected, often times they do not know. About 1 percent of those infected with HPV 6 and 11 actually develop lesions.

HPV is transmitted by direct sexual contact or by a contaminated object. Twenty-five percent of those women infected with HPV will develop cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and one percent will develop invasive cervical cancer. Since cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women after breast cancer, the HPV vaccine has received much attention as a possible deterrent and one of the few vaccines available today in reducing cancer risk..

The Gardasil vaccine was approved by the FDA on June 2006 for use in females nine to 26 years of age. In 2006, the European Commission approved its use for girls and boys ages nine to 15, and women ages 16 to 26. The vaccine is believed to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer by 90 percent.