If you have a limited supply the greater bang per buck would be to start with the young people who almost certainly haven't caught it yet and then work your way up.
Vaccines are subject to stringent safety standards since they’re administered to healthy people. The age limit may suggest that at the time of the recommendation, in the relevant jurisdiction, the manufacturer had not studied its safety and efficacy in >40 year olds.
(I also don’t think it’s an age limit as much as the upper end of a recommendation.)
“The route of HPV transmission is primarily through skin-to-skin or skin-to-mucosa contact. Sexual transmission is the most documented, but there have been studies suggesting non-sexual courses.
The horizontal transfer of HPV includes fomites, fingers, and mouth, skin contact (other than sexual). Self-inoculation is described in studies as a potential HPV transmission route, as it was certified in female virgins, and in children with genital warts (low-risk HPV) without a personal history of sexual abuse. Vertical transmission from mother to child is another HPV transfer course” [1].
Something like 80% of people are sexually active at all will be infected with HPV at some point. You may not have been sexually active, but your future partners may have been. I personally have a friend who went through stage 4 cancer contracted from her (now ex) husband.
So, of course not literally everyone needs to take it, assess your own risks, but it's quite an easy, highly effective vaccine: don't overthink it.
As pm90 wrote, I strongly recommend getting vaccinated [2] unless a doctor tells you otherwise, even if you already have HPV or have had previous potential exposure.
[1] Circulating tumor human papillomavirus DNA whole genome sequencing enables human papillomavirus-associated oropharynx cancer early detection - https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article-abstract/doi/1... | https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djaf249
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine
(had three doses in my 30s via Planned Parenthood)
Apparently, it’s about as easy to get as an old-school medical marijuana card.
Results vary by state though. No need to travel to Canada or Mexico (yet).
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/the-power-of-a-single-dose...
Wasn't it 3 doses before?
HPV can cause cancers in the cervix, vulva, vagina, penis, anus and back of the throat [1].
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/about/cancers-caused-by-hpv.html
There's a chart about 2/3 down the page that shows a drop in several age groups, and a particularly striking drop in the 20-29 age group: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/fd3e820c-4610-4c4e...
Those monsters. Don't they know those viruses have a right to live?
"Despite this good news, roughly one third of women screened during the study period still had infection with high-risk HPV types not covered by the original vaccines – and new infections with these types were more frequent among vaccinated women, compared to unvaccinated ones."
Not to mention the unavoidable side effects that every injection causes.
Is there a net positive benefit to this shot, other than to GAVI and the manufacturer's bottom line ? Nobody knows.
Yes
https://ourworldindata.org/hpv-vaccination-world-can-elimina...
from https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/by_th...
Am I understanding that correctly?
Doesn't necessarily have HPV their whole life - time-to-clearance is somewhat variable.
And yes, both slower clearance and just more infections are both associated with increased risk.
But because the modern versions of these vaccines cover many strains (initial vaccines were two, Denmark chose a 4 way vaccine, now a nine way) it's very possible that you get a meaningful benefit by being protected from say six strains your body has never seen, even though the three it has already seen wouldn't be prevented.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... ("Kennedy played key role in Gardasil vaccine case against Merck")
> "Details of the Gardasil litigation show how Kennedy took action beyond sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines in the court of public opinion and helped build a case against the pharmaceutical industry before judges and juries."
> "Kennedy, a longtime plaintiffs' lawyer, became involved in the Gardasil litigation in 2018 in collaboration with Robert Krakow, an attorney specializing in vaccine injury cases, Krakow said"
Not like disease prevention is a universally good thing and some people tend to have sex.
At the end of the day, religious radicals like STDs because it enforces their worldview that having multiple sexual partners in a lifetime is a sin.
What a great system.
Vaccinating older populations is similarly just a less clear-cut case, but it's a cost-effectiveness argument, not one purely driven by if the vaccine offers protection.
Bad news is that many countries came close to wiping out measles et al. too, but it takes sustained effort to keep things like that.
"We have a vaccine to prevent some very serious cancers."
"But it might turn my daughter into a hussy."
What happened to "I just want my children to be happy" ?
Prior to Covid, the antivaxx scene was vaguely left-and-green oriented, biomoms, vegans and other "very natural" people; you would expect them to vote for Greens or even more alternative parties. This changed abruptly and now the antivaxx scene is mostly rightwing, but the common base is still the same distrust.
I wonder if this is the price we pay for radical informational transparency. Nowadays, democratic countries with reasonable freedom of press cannot really prevent their own fuckups from surfacing in the worst possible way. Some people react by complete rejection of anything that comes from "official" channels and become ripe for manipulation from other actors.
Such people have always existed, unfortunately. I don't think it's a result of anything particularly new.
In the 1990s, you had maybe 15 minutes a day on average to consume news, either from a paper newspaper, or from an evening TV relation. Now, quite a lot of people spend 20 times as much time doomscrolling. Of course the impact will be much more massive.
The more likely explanation is the massive amounts of immigration from 3rd world countries. But yes, he’s not helping any.
