Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
Speaker 1: From housetop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Kristen and this is Molly, So Molly, uh
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast. We talk a lot
Speaker 1: about lady things, lots of female hormones, makeup, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But you know what, today, let's switch things around. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the boys, shall we. Let's hear it for
Speaker 1: the boys. We got this great reader email from um
Speaker 1: A listener a Gordon in Ontario, and he brought up
Speaker 1: the recent backlash against the HPV vaccine that prevents UH
Speaker 1: sexually transmitted disease HPV and therefore can help prevent cervical cancer. Gardisill,
Speaker 1: gardisil exactly, and he thought it is interesting that a
Speaker 1: lot of the backlash against HPV was based on the
Speaker 1: idea that it would encourage girls to have sex at
Speaker 1: a young age because they wouldn't have this risk of
Speaker 1: catching an STD. Right, And Gordon has really just his
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of current events, because this is
Speaker 1: in the news right now, but not about girls. It's
Speaker 1: actually revolving around boys, because Mark, the company that makes
Speaker 1: garter Sill, is trying to get Gartersil approved for boys
Speaker 1: to get vaccinated. Right now, it's just for girls to
Speaker 1: prevent this HPV, but the new development might be that
Speaker 1: boys get vaccinated too, right, because boys can get HPV
Speaker 1: just like girls, And since a lot of strains of
Speaker 1: HPV don't show any immediate physical symptoms, a boy might
Speaker 1: not know that he has HPV, and then he and
Speaker 1: a lady friend might have adult relations, and then he
Speaker 1: passes the HPV onto the girl, and then she could
Speaker 1: actually catch a strain of HPV that could cause cervical cancer.
Speaker 1: So it seems like boys could be an important part
Speaker 1: of really solving this, uh this puzzle. Right, So let's
Speaker 1: back up real quick and just go over gardasil, what
Speaker 1: it does, what it protects against, and when it doesn't.
Speaker 1: People call it frequently the cervical cancer vaccine, but it's
Speaker 1: important to note that it's not going to protect directly
Speaker 1: against cervical cancer, right. Gardensil is actually formulated to attack
Speaker 1: four specific strains of HPV. The number HPV numbers six, eleven, sixteen,
Speaker 1: and eighteen, and these are the types of HPV that
Speaker 1: are known to potentially cause cervical cancer. So that's why
Speaker 1: they call it cervical cancer vaccine. But like you said,
Speaker 1: it's actually going after HPV. But going after cervical cancer
Speaker 1: indirectly is no small feet because, uh, this disease affects
Speaker 1: and kills nearly three thousand women per year. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a lot of lives that could be saved,
Speaker 1: which is how Garzia has been marketed to girls. The
Speaker 1: one less campaign could be one less girl that's going
Speaker 1: to get the cervical cancer. Right. And HPV is also
Speaker 1: uh most common sexually transmitted disease right now in the US.
Speaker 1: We have about twenty million people currently infected with it,
Speaker 1: according to Centers for Disease Control, and about six point
Speaker 1: two million Americans get a new HPV infection every year.
Speaker 1: And you got a fifty fifty chance of catching it
Speaker 1: if you're sexually active adult. Right. And HPV, like you know,
Speaker 1: Christmas saying it attacks four strains and they're you know,
Speaker 1: more than a hundred strains of this disease. And you
Speaker 1: know one way that it might affect you would be
Speaker 1: genital warts. That's a one way the HPV can manifest itself. Right,
Speaker 1: And even though they're more than a hundred different types
Speaker 1: of HPV, only just two of these strains are responsible
Speaker 1: for about seventy percent of all cervical cancer cases worldwide.
Speaker 1: So it seems like mark is really tapped into UM
Speaker 1: a pretty powerful vaccine here, right, And their studies uphold
Speaker 1: that is shows that it's pretty effective. UM. When they
Speaker 1: were doing test cases, you know, they looked at nearly
Speaker 1: nine thousand women who took guard a cell and they
Speaker 1: prevented a hundred percent of certain HPV related cervical cancer. So,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge step forward, a huge dent
Speaker 1: in this process. Right, And the in the CDC actually
Speaker 1: just finished up in two thousand and eight a post
Speaker 1: marketing test phase to see whether or not girls taking
Speaker 1: uh gardasil or more at risk for certain diseases, and
Speaker 1: they concluded that there weren't any adverse side effects. So
Speaker 1: it still has the approval of the f d A.
Speaker 1: But pretty soon after the FDA approved it, there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a public backlash from parents who
Speaker 1: were concerned about the young age that was being recommended
Speaker 1: for these girls to get vaccinated. Right, the FDA was saying,
Speaker 1: you can get the vaccination as young as nine, but
Speaker 1: really more on the eleven to twelve year old ballpark.
Speaker 1: And you know that was just for some parents, way
Speaker 1: too young to have to explain to a kid why
Speaker 1: they need the shot, because it's a lengthy process. It's
Speaker 1: three vaccinations over an eight month period. I think. So
Speaker 1: if you have to take your kid into the doctor
Speaker 1: at the age of eleven three times to get a shot,
Speaker 1: you know they're gonna want to know why. And so
Speaker 1: when you start talking about cervical cancer and HPV, then
Speaker 1: you know people felt you were setting your child up
Speaker 1: to become sexually active at a very young age right
Speaker 1: in the in the backlash really intensified when a handful
Speaker 1: of states, including Texas in Virginia, tried to make GARDASIL
Speaker 1: immunization required for sixth grade girls. Parents were up in arm.
Speaker 1: Some parents at least we're up in arms over the
Speaker 1: thought of a state forcing their young daughters to be
Speaker 1: immunized against sexually transmitted diseases, especially with the vaccine where
Speaker 1: the side effects and the long term effects aren't very
Speaker 1: well known, which leads us into the argument of whether
Speaker 1: boys should get this vaccine because now that we're talking
Speaker 1: about boys potentially getting it. The risk are becoming much
Speaker 1: more the focus of the conversation, not so much the
Speaker 1: issue of promiscuity, but the fact that maybe this vaccine
Speaker 1: isn't safe for everyone, right, I mean, you think of
Speaker 1: cervical cancer as a gender specific disease. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: boys would not be able to physically get cervical cancer,
Speaker 1: So that brings up the question of whether or not
Speaker 1: this should be something that women should take care of exclusively.
Speaker 1: But that also begs the question of let's say there
Speaker 1: is a prostate cancer vaccine that could be available for
Speaker 1: young girls to take. How would the public react to that?
Speaker 1: Would we be as hesitant about boys and girls taking
Speaker 1: a prostate cancer vaccine as we are about cervical cancer
Speaker 1: because it's specifically uh is linked to a common std right,
Speaker 1: it's the sex cancer, as it was described in one
Speaker 1: New York Times article. So the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: we could and you know another Arctic points that if
Speaker 1: it was breast cancer, it wouldn't be as big a
Speaker 1: deal to immunize everyone. But because this is, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of seen as a consequence of sexual activity, people
Speaker 1: are very lwery about having the whole population immunize for
Speaker 1: it right. And cost effectiveness is another big hurdle in
Speaker 1: this whole whole immunization debate because gardisil require yers around
Speaker 1: the three separate shots over a period about eight months,
Speaker 1: and each shot costs around a hundred and twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: So these mothers with sons are wondering why they're going
Speaker 1: to shell out almost four hundred dollars to get their
Speaker 1: sons immunities against this cancer that they will never get
Speaker 1: right to the risk and the costs outweigh the benefit
Speaker 1: to the boys when the only benefit they're really getting
Speaker 1: is uh the HPV benefit, which is not a small
Speaker 1: potato sort of thing. I mean, they are protecting against
Speaker 1: genital warts. But you know the big kicker with this
Speaker 1: drag a cervical cancer. Is it worth it two boys? Right?
Speaker 1: And I think that you have to look at the
Speaker 1: big picture of of herd immunity if you will. That
Speaker 1: that a New York Times article brought up um many
Speaker 1: of the women who die from cervical cancer can't afford
Speaker 1: regular gynecological exams to get PAP smears that will usually
Speaker 1: catch it in its earlier stages. And in addition, cervical
Speaker 1: cancer is most fatal to women who are living in poverty,
Speaker 1: So chances are these same women are not going to
Speaker 1: of the per pop to get gard asil. So by
Speaker 1: that logic, you would think that the more people, boys
Speaker 1: and girls you immunize, the better it's going to be
Speaker 1: for the entire population. Right. Basically, if an immunized man
Speaker 1: stays with an unimunized woman, the infection still steps there
Speaker 1: because of the immunization and people, I guess when the
Speaker 1: whole stuff with girls was going on, I didn't really
Speaker 1: like to point out that if the girl is going
Speaker 1: to get HPV, it was the guy who gave it
Speaker 1: to her. You know, it's it takes two to tango, well,
Speaker 1: said Molly. But one thing that people are still questioning
Speaker 1: about garden sils. Some parents are still questioning, is this
Speaker 1: issue of safety. It's a relatively new vaccine. Vaccines don't
Speaker 1: have the best reputation right now. People are kind of
Speaker 1: freaked out by them, but it hasn't been on the
Speaker 1: market long enough to know what the long term effects
Speaker 1: are of these. You know, twelve year old girls getting immunized, right,
Speaker 1: and if you do any sort of internet starts, you're
Speaker 1: gonna come up with tons of pairs saying that after
Speaker 1: a Gardosil vaccine their daughter came down with something. And
Speaker 1: this is where, of course, any argument about vaccines is tricky,
Speaker 1: because you're getting into correlation versus causation, where you know,
Speaker 1: people get a shot and then something turns up later
Speaker 1: and they wonder is this related to the shot? But
Speaker 1: you know there are a few conditions Mark. Of course,
Speaker 1: Mark says it's perfectly safe. But if you do a
Speaker 1: quick search, the most common things that will come up
Speaker 1: that might be results of gardisil are seizures, paralysis, fainting um.
Speaker 1: There's one girl who died from a form of Luke
Speaker 1: Garrick's disease that they're trying to tie to gardossil. So
Speaker 1: you know, Mark is constantly evaluating it safety, as is
Speaker 1: the Food and Drug Administration. But when you've got these
Speaker 1: kind of risks, then of course someone who's only going
Speaker 1: to get the secondary benefits of this vaccine is questioning
Speaker 1: whether they should, you know, expose themselves to that. Right,
Speaker 1: it seems like we still have a little ways to
Speaker 1: go in terms of testing for gardenssil to really call
Speaker 1: parents fears about whether or not it actually is safe.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to boys, it might be marketed
Speaker 1: as this, you know, really chivalrous thing to do. You know,
Speaker 1: this guy is getting vaccinated against cervical cancer. He's saving women.
Speaker 1: I know, the shot throw that on a date. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty compelling. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: a ten year old boy is really going to buy
Speaker 1: into that marketing so much, but hey, good work, right, So,
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about the cervical cancer vaccine,
Speaker 1: I know where you can find out. I'm gonna guess
Speaker 1: it's how stuff works dot com. Milly, You're right, Kristen,
Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or questions, be sure
Speaker 1: to email Christen me at mom stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of
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