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Home › Articles › Health › The HPV Vaccine

The HPV Vaccine

A Shot Against Cervical Cancer

By Kelly Burgess

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Dr. Lance Rodewald is such a strong believer in the benefits of the new human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that he tried to get his daughter vaccinated before she went off to college. What he discovered was that their pediatrician didn't offer the vaccine yet. Fortunately, the student medical center of the college she was attending did, so he arranged for her to have her vaccination done there.

Dr. Rodewald isn't just your typical father, sending his child off to college; he's the director of the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Immunization Services Division. The reason he wasn't able to get the vaccine at the pediatrician's is because it was just recently approved, and its manufacturer, Merck, hasn't had a chance to make it widely available. However, that should change fairly quickly. When it does, Dr. Rodewald would like to see the parents of other girls follow his lead, because it can make a huge difference in the rate of HPV infections, which cause abnormal changes in the cervix, cervical cancer and genital warts.

"The reason that I wanted my daughter vaccinated is that there's a big burden of disease that this vaccine prevents," Dr. Rodewald says. "There are 2.8 million abnormal pap smears every year that require follow up action, and there are nearly 10,000 cases of cervical cancer each year that result in approximately 3,900 deaths. In addition, there are half a million cases of genital warts this vaccine will prevent."

Understanding HPV
The chances that a woman will become infected at some point in her life with the HPV are very high. According to the CDC, approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV, and at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired an HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.

HPV generally exhibits no signs or symptoms, so most people are not aware that they are infected. However, they can still pass the infection on to a partner. In most cases, the body fights off the virus and there are no lasting effects. In other cases, the infection persists and can lead to cervical cancer. HPV infection is the cause of virtually all cases of cervical cancer.


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