Skiddishness over vaccinating children against STI's

I found this article from the New York Times last week to be an interesting commentary on the fears we have of our children becoming sexual beings. Although the emergence of the vaccine for HPV has questionable beginnings in its development and marketing, it has started conversations surrounding young women and HPV. If nothing else we can use this opportunity to educate both young women and young men about the virus and its progression to cervical cancer. However, the marketing of the vaccine has focused on the prevention of cervical cancer, sidetracking the mode of infection of HPV.

In this article Jan Hoffman focuses on the vaccination of boys for HPV. She states that by 2009 the vaccination will be approved for boys as well. Seen as males are often the unkowing carriers of HPV (which tends to be symptomless in men), the vaccination has been marketed to young women and girls. (As a side, I discovered that HPV can lead to greater illness in men, such as anal or penile cancer. See http://www.cdc.gov/STD/hpv/STDFact-HPV-and-men.htm#whatare. However, it looks like these are much less common than cervical cancer due to HPV in women, so not forced into the public concious as much).

Hoffman's main point is how Merck would go about marketing the vaccine to boys, when there is not the increasing fear of cancer as in girls. Basically, the vaccination of boys against HPV would be for the purpose of preventing the transmission of an STI that can cause cervical cancer in girls. For parents already in denial that kids are having sex earlier than they'd like, to have their son vaccinated for an STI seems even more controversial than vaccinating girls. At least with girls Merck can focus on the prevention of cervical cancer, but the vaccination of boys wakes us up to the nature of transmission of HPV.