HPV linked to throat cancer

does that vaccine work on males?

not, and why haven't they (any pharmaceutical company or the governments...state and federal) even MENTIONED that they are either working on one or don't they don't feel a sexually transmitted disease should be a threat to both genders since at least one could be a potential CARRIER? You can't have a sexually transmitted disease without taking care of both genders...or are they going to claim that ONLY lesbians are passing it to each other like they did with HIV/AIDS regarding gay men?

TONI

it may not work in men, it wasn't designed for it. Was that worth blowing a feminist gasket for?

I don't think anybody really knows whether or not it works on men because it has not been tested adequately. I've read that tests are under way but I haven't seen any results.

From an economic perspective the company did not have much incentive to test the vaccine on men until it was approved. The primary sales pitch for the vaccine is not really prevention of HPV which (for men) has mostly been regarded as a nuisance infection. The pitch has been prevention of cervical cancer. Maybe men SHOULD worry about HPV but so far they haven't done so.

I agree that if the goal is to prevent HPV then it would make sense to vaccinate both men and women but doing so would be a hard sell. It might be easier to sell to men if the vaccine prevented genital warts but it doesn't.

Personally I don't think the vaccine should be mandatory but given the relatively paternalistic attitude of many leaders in the public health community I suspect that there will be many states that are pressured into making the vaccine mandatory.

I don't understand why men should take the drug (completely untested on men) to protect themselves from cervical cancer. Did I out glib you?

men taking the vaccine to prevent not only throat cancer on a personal level, but also to prevent being a carrier to a woman who hasn't been vaccinated...yet? Oral and/or 'normal' sex...a man could get it either way and either end up with throat cancer or pass it along as a carrier.

This is not a feminist attitude I'm copping here, dm....it's a FAIR attitude. The very fact that this is a SEXUALLY transmitted disease should have you worried that your own son could be passing it around to unsuspecting female partners, but that sounds like it would be okay with you since you regard this as a woman's responsibility only to prevent spreading it to your son.

There are just as many women who have, as a 'precaution' performed oral sex on a man in order to prevent pregnancy, and now there is a double whammy that you feel only SHE should be protected against. Where does the man fit into your picture regarding being a responsible partner?

And you think I'M glib?????

TONI

vaccine will work on a man, and if not tested then its a maybe it will help prevent in men

...(unless my info is out of date) is that even with couples that were celibate before marriage, and faithful thereafter...

It is not uncommon for the wife to develop a vaginal yeast infection after taking a course of antibiotics. Easily cured, but when the infection keeps returning, it is time to treat the husband. Just a guess on my part, but as male babies are not routinely circumcised any more, this could increase his chances of becoming infected, even with the best hygiene practices.

Now, consider that one or the other had a fling before marriage. Couldn't either of them be a carrier?

During my generation, birth control was the sole responsibility of women. I can't count the number of times I heard patients say, "My husband won't wear a condom." (Hopefully, that mind-set is no longer so prevalent.) It was the girl's fault when she became pregnant as "boys will be boys." (I realize it takes two.)

It just seems to me that in a loving relationship mutual caring equals being concerned about the reproductive health of the other.

My guess is that it will take a long time to research if the immunization works on men unless men show enough interest.

I am on the fence re: mandatory immunization for girls. However, cancer treatment is costly, and impacts us all. We are educated re: reducing risks (like not smoking), wearing sun screen, etc. If this vaccine can prevent certain forms of cancer, I think it's worth considering.

Angeline
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...HPV immunization does NOT work in men. Like with birth control, it seems that men's physiology is more difficult to tailor such drugs to. In any event, HPV, from what I've read on the subject, seems to only produce genital warts in infected men - and then not all of them. On the other hand, HPV infection is proven to wreak much havoc on women. Therefore, given those facts, doesn't it make sense to offer (NOT mandate; my libertarian side gets riled up at suggestions that ANY medical treatment be mandated) a treatment to those in the general population who have the most to lose from HPV?

Of course no one with a shred of intelligence would suggest that HPV is spread primarily through lesbian sex, as there's no proof that that's the case. There IS, however, ample data to prove that at its beginning, HIV/AIDS was almost exclusively a virus spread among gay men, helped no doubt by the large rate of infection by other STD's, notably syphillis, as well as rampant drug abuse and promiscuity among gay men. What happened after that was that the AIDS virus, being quick to mutate and adapt, found its way into the general population. We can see that in Africa, where a majority of new AIDS cases are seemingly caused through heterosexual contact.

We acted promptly to try to limit HIV/AIDS; Africa, for a multitude of reasons, did not.

Paul

I'm not challenging you here but I would like to see your source. To the best of my knowledge (very limited, I admit) virus vaccinations depend on a "dead"or weakened viral strain which the patient is basically infected with to aid the immune system to build up a tolerance. This is how it worked with Small pox... this is how it worked with polio... and so forth. Were these vaccines gender specific? Did different versions need to be mixed for men and women? I don't know... but would be curious if anyone can say.

grim

If a pharmaceutical company is looking for a cure for a sexually transmitted disease, it seems to me that you would be trying to create and test a vaccine that would work for both genders and not make one specifically for women....especially if you've determined that the disease had to be being spread by both sexes even if only one of those sexes was the target of the disease since it is a killer type.

My problem with the vaccine is that 'just because' women were the ones who could die from this it stands to reason that a mandatory vaccination should ALSO include the SOURCE and not just the target so why weren't the pharmaceutical companies concerned with that issue in order to help prevent the spread and testing this vaccine on men (or developing one parallel to developing the vaccine for women)....especially if they were going to lobby the government for a mandatory order?

It doesn't seem to be something that concerned anybody until now...now that the HPV virus can ALSO be a potential killer or maiming of men...NOW it will get ALOT more attention in that direction and it ticks me off when the vaccine for men could also be 'on the table' for mandates already if decision making hadn't been so one-sided to begin with regarding a sexually transmitted disease.

TONI