Boys Should Share Responsibility For HPV Prevention, Slate Columnist Argues

Main Category: Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Also Included In: Men's health;  Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 20 Oct 2009 - 2:00 PST

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A recent study in the British Medical Journal finding that it would not be cost effective to vaccinate boys and men against the human papillomavirus unfairly shifts the responsibility for vaccination to girls and women, Slate columnist William Saletan writes. Saletan notes that while the vaccine blocks strains of HPV linked to cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancers in women, it can also prevent diseases that affect men and boys, including oral, anal and throat cancers, as well as genital warts and a respiratory condition in infants that is connected to maternal HPV infection.

The BMJ study reported that vaccinating boys is "unlikely to provide good value for resources compared with vaccinating girls only." Saletan explains that the study's authors cite several reasons against vaccinating boys, including that "HPV is more likely to harm girls," that "the vaccine is more effective in girls" and that "the rate of viral transmission depends on the virus's prevalence 'in the opposite sex at any given time.'" According to this reasoning, "[i]f girls are routinely vaccinated, there's nothing for boys to catch or transmit," Saletan writes. He adds, "In other words, boys don't have to get vaccinated for the same reason they don't have to wash dishes, do laundry, buy birth control, or think about other people in general: Girls will do it for them." Saletan asks, "Why do HPV vaccines work better in girls than in boys? Because they were designed for and tested in girls." He argues that boys should "share the responsibility" of HPV prevention.

Saletan also notes that the BMJ study did not take into account that vaccinating girls and women against HPV will have little effect on men who have sex with men, who have a higher risk of anal cancer. He writes that the "argument for vaccinating gay men isn't just that they might benefit. It's that vaccinating women won't help them," as "they can't count on somebody else to take care of the problem." Saletan concludes, "Maybe routine vaccination of both sexes is overkill. But in that case, perhaps we should ask why the partner who takes care of the birth control should get the vaccination, too" (Saletan, Slate, 10/15).

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