Why are anti-vaxxers targeting the HPV vaccine? It's complicated -- and dangerous
New research shows that the HPV vaccine is exceeding expectations in protecting individuals from HPV infection and precancerous cells. The study's lead author, Mélanie Drolet, touts the potential "elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem." The new study, which is an analysis of 60 million individuals from 14 countries, found that vaccination protected both the vaccinated and the larger population via a "herd immunity" effect. In other words, even those who were not vaccinated were indirectly protected. And while HPV is most typically associated with cervical cancer, the virus can also cause other cancers, such as anal and penile cancer, and cancers of the head and neck, as well as nonfatal conditions such as genital warts.
This is all great news. It now looks like we have a safe, highly effective vaccine that has the potential to significantly reduce many forms of cancer. So why is it also becoming a key target of many anti-vaxxers?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the leading lights of the anti-vaccine movement, recently published a lengthy article intent on scaring parents and teens away from the HPV vaccine. Two other high-profile anti-vaxxers, disgraced physician Andrew Wakefield and film producer Del Bigtree, are teaming up for their second anti-vaccine documentary, "Vaxxed 2: The People's Truth," which will reportedly focus on the HPV vaccine. This follows threeotherfilms which similarly attack this vaccine. They have even hosted an entire conference on the topic.
I asked Dr. Abbey Berenson, an Ob/Gyn at the University of Texas Medical Branch who studies women's health and the HPV vaccine, why this vaccine in particular has become such a target of the anti-vaxxer crowd. She suggested four reasons for why it's recently generated such controversy. Some of these have to do with the vaccine's efficiency and others are based more in abstract questions of morality, which is reflective of the changing nature of the anti-vaccine movement as a whole. No longer are anti-vaxxers simply claiming vaccines cause autism, as they once did. Now the movement has become more complicated and its motivations at once more diverse and more obscure.
First, she noted that many don't realize the magnitude of the risk from HPV infection. "More than 80 percent of sexually active individuals will acquire an infection during their lifetime," Berenson told me. Once they have the virus, many will clear it without further issues, but the virus lingers in about 10 percent of infected women and can lead to precancerous cervical lesions. While these abnormalities can often be caught by Pap smears and removed by procedures such as LEEP (a minor surgical procedure), such medical interventions that may be painful and psychologically distressful. And they can be largely avoided now via vaccination. (Full disclosure: I've had a LEEP procedure previously, and it was both painful and a cause of later stress.)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/why-are-anti-vaxxers-targeting-the-hpv-vaccine-its-complicated--and-dangerous/ar-AAEMEM9?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
