The lights are low. Your roommate went home for the weekend. The cheap jazz CD you bought especially for occasions like this sends soothing notes through the candle-scented air. The hottest girl you’ve ever met at The Steer actually asked if she could come home with you. She takes off her bra revealing a pair of perfect Cs before she begins to slide off her lace thong. Just when you think you’ve got it made, you reach between her legs and feel something that makes you want to run from the room screaming: genital warts.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease, and if you’ve ever had sex, you probably have it. A whopping 80 percent of people will contract some form of HPV by the time they reach the age of 50, according to the Center for Disease Control. Certain strands are known to cause cervical cancer, accounting for the deaths of nearly 4,000 women per year in the United States alone.
A new vaccine for girls, Gardasil, has been proven to prevent types 6 and 11 of HPV, which cause 90 percent of genital warts, and types 16 and 18, which cause 70 percent of cervical cancers in women.
Could this recently approved vaccine mean the end of HPV?
An estimated 20 million people worldwide have HPV. There is no approved HPV test for men, but the effects of the virus in men are limited to genital warts and a very low instance of rectal and penile cancers. Women should be more concerned about the virus, as it causes 99.7 percent of all cervical cancers.
Kristine Huber, Assistant Director of Health Education and Human Services at UB, says that most cases of HPV will clear on their own within eight to 13 months. If a woman’s immune system fails to wipe out the virus, she should have a colposcopy, which is a procedure where a doctor uses a microscope to take a closer look at the cells on the cervix that her Pap or HPV test proved to be abnormal. These abnormal cells are known as dysplasia, which are cells in the early stages of becoming pre-cancerous. Treatment for dysplasia in women may include cryotherapy, in which the abnormal tissue is literally frozen until it’s dead, or laser treatment. Without treatment, those abnormal cells could escalate to cervical cancer, which causes infertility and can be terminal.
It is imperative that sexually active college students know what physical risks are associated with having sex. Frighteningly, HPV can silently creep into one’s life whether they are monogamous or promiscuous, “safe” or unprotected. One undergraduate UB student, speaking anonymously, was shocked to learn that she had contracted the virus, even though she considered herself safe. “One of my roommate’s friends said she had HPV, but I thought it was just because she slept with a lot of guys. I’ve only had two boyfriends and we always used condoms.”
Colleen Schiffhauer, a women’s health nurse practitioner and Director of Patient Services at Planned Parenthood of Buffalo & Erie County, offers thorough counseling to patients who show up positive for HPV, making sure they understand the virus as well as what is happening to their bodies.
Schiffhauer makes it clear that if you’ve had sex with more than one partner, there is no way of knowing whom you contracted the virus from. “We don’t want women going out and taking shotguns to their boyfriends,” she says. A woman who is diagnosed with HPV while she has been with one partner in a long-term relationship may accuse her partner of cheating. The reality is that the virus may not show up in an exam for some time. Her colleague, Director of Marketing & Communications, Amy White adds, “In the absence of education, people can jump to conclusions. What we try to do is give information so people don’t have to make those leaps.”
The folks at Planned Parenthood have high hopes for the vaccine. June 8, 2006 marked the day that the first vaccine ever designed to prevent cervical cancer was approved by the FDA. While the vaccine has already been proven safe and effective, it will not become mandatory for school children without the approval of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a branch of the Center for Disease Control. Schiffhauer says that, ideally, the vaccine would be required for girls as young as nine years old—before the average girl would become sexually active. However, she has concerns about the probability of this happening. “No one wants to even admit that their child may have sex in three years” she says. “You can see the political ramifications of saying that ten to 13-year-olds need to be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease.”
Cervical cancer generally develops when women with HPV go untreated. Because the only way to tell if a woman is infected with HPV is to have a Pap smear or HPV test, many women (especially those who don’t have insurance and can’t pay for regular gynecological exams) don’t even know they have the virus until they have already developed cancer.
If the vaccine does not become compulsory, insurance companies may not be required to cover the cost of the vaccination, and one would have to pay up to $500 for the series of three shots. So the women who cannot afford the vaccine may not be able to afford even as much as a diagnosis if they contract HPV.
Many Christian groups, one of the most vocal being Focus on the Family, oppose making the vaccine mandatory for school children because they promote abstinence and fear that children will engage in unsafe sexual practices before marriage.
Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family, says that her organization whole-heartedly supports the vaccine, but because the virus is sexually transmitted and “you can not be infected by making decisions to remain abstinent until marriage,” it should be up to the minors’ parents whether or not to vaccinate their children.
Moira Gaul, health policy analyst for the Family Research Council, agrees that the vaccine should be optional. Both groups make it abundantly clear that their respective organizations are supportive of the vaccine and its development, but in a statement to the ACIP, Gaul voices her concern that medically accurate information is not necessarily being given. She writes, “Care must be taken not to communicate that such an intervention makes all sex ‘safe.’ We strongly encourage the health care community to clearly communicate the medically accurate fact that only abstaining from sexual contact with infected individuals can fully protect someone from the wide range of sexually transmitted diseases.”
It comes down to a battle between science and values. Making the vaccine mandatory for children could virtually wipe out cervical cancer in the future, but would also outrage thousands of conservative parents and politicians.
Planned Parenthood’s Amy White hopes that the vaccine will become a part of the general protocol of vaccines for children. “Science really needs to prevail here,” she said. “It can save lives and save people’s future fertility.”
