Why aren’t people excited to get it? As a male I wish the vaccine was available to me. The prospect of protecting yourself and anyone you have sex with is without a doubt an opportunity everyone should relish. Although HPV causes significantly more cases of cervical cancer, it does cause penile, anal and throat cancers.

The idea that it’s not men’s responsibility because it’s a women’s disease is also perplexing. Since when were we a culture ignorant to the health of our society. I believe we still teach children to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze right? No one says ‘Cough on whoever you want and let them deal with it.’

As far as the safety goes, everyone should try and keep up with the current research before making commenting on it. The vaccine is purely a protein molecule containing no viral DNA, thus is it NOT oncogenic and NOT infectious.

As far as mandating the vaccine, I’m not sure if I agree. I believe it’s up to the individual to make the responsible decision about when to get the vaccine. Not everyone becomes sexually active at the same age.

Other than that I think people need to keep more open minds and respect what other people believe.

I think it’s very obvious that female health problems receieve greater attention than health problems of boys and men.

Michael, you’re full of shit.

All you see is the suggestion that money be spent in a way that benefits women at all, and that caused your three remaining brain cells to cease functioning.

I think what he saw, mythago, is boys being asked to do something strictly for women’s benefit, which of course is wrong. Never mind that most women GET the virus from men, not other women. Never mind that men get the actual warts, too, and if they have sex with more than one woman in their lifetimes that means they can actually be the cause of those other women getting it in the first place.

No, no–if the sluts are having sex they should go ahead and get cancer, even if he’s the one giving them the virus it’s their problem and their own damned fault. They were asking for it.

/snark. Fucking concern troll asswipe.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that men and boys receive better healthcare than women and girls. Yet men live shorter lives and boys are more likely to die in childhood than girls. I’m afraid the truth is that men are in fact weaker than women. The lack of backup X chromosome can be a killer. Literally.

Your response is typical and predictable. Whenever women or girls are at a disadvantage in any area discrimination is automatically assumed. Whenever men and boys are, it’s always everything but discrimination.

If our goverment is more concerned with health problems of men than of women how come there is no male counterpart to “Office on Women’s health”, despite the fact that men have more health problems and die younger than women?

Why does our Federal government spend a lot more money on breast cancer research than on prostate cancer research?

Why is there a National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, but no similar day for boys and men?

There is a mobile mammography van that is providing free mammograms and PAP tests to women. We do not offer equivalent services for men, such as prostate exams. The van also offers women, but not men, free screening for hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.

There is http://www.womenshealth.gov and http://www.girlshealth.gov, but no similar pages for men and boys in the .gov top domain.

I think it’s very obvious that female health problems receieve greater attention than health problems of boys and men.

Out of the curiosity I googled .gov top-level domain sites for “men’s health” and “women’s health” phrases – the results were very telling. There were 10 times as many hits for “women’s health” than for “men’s health”.

[6 & 11 are included to] “give incentive to young men to also take the vaccine… Men don’t get cervical cancer. I always strongly felt that if we only go for cervical cancer types, there would be no reason for men to accept the vaccine. Even though they are vectors for transmitting the virus, they don’t usually have effects.”

The compoment that immunises against types 16 and 18, that has no proven benefits for men and boys, is smuggled in along with the stuff that might benefit men in stopping genital warts.

So in order to get men to take the vaccine, they bundle the two types together, tricking men into taking the stuff that doesn’t benefit them if they want stuff that does. One can argue that the contruction of the vaccine like this is dishonest.

Thankfully, a few parents seem to get it:

That’s good enough for some mothers. “If there was a vaccine I could take that would get rid of prostate cancer, why wouldn’t I?” said Lisa Lippman, a Manhattan real estate broker with three sons. “If there was a vaccine that sons could get that would get rid of breast cancer, most parents wouldn’t hesitate. But cervical cancer is the ‘sex cancer.’ ”

All vaccines have harmful side effects. This one isn’t going to be any different. They’re usually given on the basis that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks, but with men no great benefits from the vaccine have been conclusively demonstrated and proven. Hence the problem. If the benefits of the vaccine are proven to outweight the risks for boys and men, then by all means give it to them – no arguments there. But you and others are arguing that even if that’s not the case, boys’ should be subjected to the risks anyway in order to benefit girls.

If an adult would want to be vaccinated to protect someone else then that’s very noble and he should be congratulated.

But suggesting that boys, who are too young to give their consent, should be exposed to the risks of side effects and adverse reactions in order to protect girls from diseases, and that parents should consent to this on their behalf, raises serious ethical concerns. If they’re damaged – by a vaccine that was meant to protect someone else – then I think they’ve got a legitimate complaint.

There are ethical reasons for being wary about providing interventions which are not proven to be significantly beneficial to the recipient, but may harm them, without their consent. Something tells me that if the sexes were reversed you wouldn’t be so keen on pushing a vaccine on girls that was meant to benefit boys and men.

As I mentioned, the STD moniker is misleading because HPV can be transmitted vertically (mother to child) in utero or in childbirth

That just puts HPV on a par with syphilis and gonorrhea, which can cause blindness in newborns. For decades, babies’ eyes have been treated with antibiotic ointments or drops as a preventative.

We need to change the ways we talk about this virus, so that the STD panic can end.

“He talked about taking responsibility for controlling a communicable disease,” said Mrs. Anderson, a stay-at-home mother in West Lafayette, Ind.

Woo! Go my town! I hope that doctor keeps it up, and I most West Laff. parents are smart enough to listen.