HPV vaccine available
USU student Meg Jones, (name changed), was frightened and confused when she learned she had human papillomavirus (HPV) and it had caused cervical lesions. She said the medical jargon came at her so quickly that she became overwhelmed with the amount of information her doctors expected her to absorb.
Jones is not alone in her experience.
Linda Roberts, family nurse practitioner and women’s health care provider, said she sees about 12 to 15 cases of cervical cancer from HPV every year.
Most students, however, are not aware of the risks, said Jim Davis, director of the Health and Wellness Center.
Davis said HPV is a sexually transmitted infection that can be spread through direct intercourse and manual and oral sex. Using condoms is no guarantee against contracting HPV, he said, because the virus can penetrate latex condoms.
“Safe sex is very difficult to practice,” Davis said. “HPV can be spread through contact with fluid containing the virus. Condoms leave many areas exposed. There’s no way, other than sexual abstinence, to be sure you won’t catch one of the many STIs out there.”
HPV is a member of the papillomaviruses family. Davis said there are four main types of HPV that can cause genital warts in both men and women and cervical cancer in women.
Roberts said these main four, out of about 20 types of HPV, are labeled the “high-risk” viruses and are responsible for 99 percent of the cervical cancer that women develop. Out of the people that have abnormal Pap smears, a test which detects the presence of abnormal cells on the cervix, she said the HPV is “rarely from the low-risk group.”
Davis said there is no cure for HPV once it is contracted, but the illnesses resulting from the virus can be treated as they reoccur.
In the past, abnormal cells have been treated through an invasive procedure called a colposcopy, but Roberts said people are now hoping to vaccinate against HPV before getting the virus.
The vaccine, Gardasil, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month for use by women. Roberts said Gardasil is currently being tested for use in men, and so far the results have been promising.
The vaccine is available through the Student Health and Wellness Center, and Davis said the current cost is $360 for the series of three injections.
Roberts said the university insurance does not currently cover the vaccine, but some insurance companies do and many are considering it because Gardasil is a cancer preventative.
Unless the person has been vaccinated against HPV, Davis said she has a “significant chance of developing cervical cancer.”
The vaccine protects against all of the four high-risk types of HPV, and even if someone already has one type, Gardasil will protect against receiving the other three.
Davis said in his 16 years at the Health and Wellness Center, he has seen a “low, but persistent rate” of STIs. He said even with the better sex education existing today, the rate of STIs will never drop to zero.
“Many parents are worried about discussion leading to increased sexual activity, but I think students today are not naive to the topic of sex,” Davis said. “Talking about sex does not lead to bad sexual behavior. It’s like teaching people to wear a seat belt even if they are good drivers; if they develop bad driving habits later on, at least they’ll be a little bit safer. This is the same thing. We educate people about sex, so if they develop risky sexual behaviors later, they’ll be a little safer.”
People who are sexually active need to decide how much risk they are willing to take, he said.
“I don’t want to be the boogeyman and scare kids, but that’s the reality and has been for a long time. It’s a matter of statistics and probability,” Davis said.
Nationwide, 10,000 women a year will develop cervical cancer and about 10 people will die every day from it, Roberts said. Approximately 500,000 women worldwide develop cervical cancer every year, making it the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among women, even surpassing breast cancer.
The numbers are in the millions for how many men and women have genital warts, which the vaccine can also prevent, Roberts said.
“You can see why the development of the vaccine means so much for the health of women,” Roberts said, citing studies from the Gardasil FDA trials showing nearly 100 percent effectiveness.
Gardasil is meant for girls and women ages 9 through 26 years, according to Merck, the company that developed Gardasil.