Should men be vaccinated against HPV?

 Human Papilloma Virus 

Further to my article on UK school girls being vaccinated against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), there is mounting evidence that the HPV immunization program should be extended to males.

HPV is known to cause cervical cancer in women, and there are vaccination programs in many countries to immunize girls and young women against the strains of HPV that are thought to cause over 70 per cent of cervical cancers, for which there are 12,000 new cases and nearly 4,000 deaths in the US alone every year.

Previous research has already shown there is a risk of a range of genital and oral cancers in men also resulting from HPV infection, but as yet there are no immunization programs for men against HPV.  

A  study by researchers at John Hopkins University in the US suggests that HPV causes as many cases of oral cancer in men as tobacco and alcohol and will overtake the latter within the next ten years. They suggest the main reasons are changes in men’s sexual behavior and the decline in oral cancers not caused by HPV.

The only vaccine against HPV is the drug Gardasil, made by Merck & Co. The drug company will be asking for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the vaccine for boys later this year.

So far, the primary argument for vaccinating men has been to stop the virus spreading to women and cutting down cervical cancer cases. But research on men is catching up, and there is mounting evidence that vaccinating boys will also benefit men directly. Apart from oral cancer, HPV also causes genital warts, penile and anal cancer.

Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com