Some Thoughts on the HPV Vaccine

On Monday, a doctor's visit looms. Nothing serious. Nothing at all, actually.

I went off the timetable for my Hepatitus B vaccination, and suspect I'm now having to re-do it as I'm a couple months late for the third stage of the vaccine. Oh, joy. Fortunately, it's just a needle and there're no side-effects other than a little tenderness around the shot spot for the next few hours.

And then we're going to have a conversation.

An old friend I've been out of touch with has been diagnosed with cervical cancer. Another friend is on the verge of having pre-cancerous cells removed from her cervix, a rather invasive procedure she's dreading like mad. Understandably.

So, I'm hearing about the human papillomavirus virus vaccine (HPV) and I'm wondering if it's able to be administered to old chicks like myself, in their 30s. The HPV is the the nasty fucker that can cause cervical cancer... and penile & anal cancer. The vaccine has just been mandated to be administered to all girls in Texas, and Germany's considering following suit. Italy gives it to all girls free of charge.

According to the FDA / CDC, the drugs are not tested on women over 26. I wonder why. The testing has begun, but at present they have no knowledge of its efficacy on women past 26 nor its safety.

Sure, there's always PAP smears, but why should I have to wait until there is a problem before I can have a solution? I want the vaccine, I know that already. We'll see if Canada's rules are different from the US right now, but we're usually swimming in the same waters. All I know is, I have one friend not responding to my calls or emails who's been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and another who's dreading treatment on pre-cancerous cells / lesions. Another friend just received the good word that her lumpectomy is negative for cancer. This time.

I'm 33, and I'm starting to see the landscape of my friendships changing, and it's certainly making me more conscious of the fears that I hold deep inside about the "c" word. My mother died of it, my aunt died of it, and several other relatives have had it or died of it. Cancer isn't just a big bad word floating on the horizon, it's a freakishly probable reality I may well have to face down the road, and, more likely than not, the one I'll face is uterine or ovarian, and that freaks the hell out of me.

I shouldn't be stuck in this boat of wishing I was seven years younger so I could get this shot so that I can be more resilient against a virus that 80% of us will contract over our lifetimes (5% of those will become cancerous, and about one out of every four of those cancer cases is fatal).

If you're a young woman and you're sexually active and you have not had this shot, then shame on you. Get out there. Get it. Now. Cervical cancer, they say, is a disease no woman should need to die of. Out of all the cancers, it is probably one of the most preventable and unnecessary. And it's one hell of a way to go.

Here's a page at the CDC about the HPV. Informative. Have a read. It's available for "boys and girls" from 9 to 15 and in "young women" from 16 to 26, but "men" have to be administered "off-license" as there's no evidence it works on men... again, because the testing has yet to be done. Some sources claim it works on boys, though, but there seems to be mixed opinions on that and I'm too lazy to further investigate it.

And a word (aka rant) to the parents out there. If you're the parent of a girl who's 9 to 15 or will be, and you don't want her getting this vaccine because you're afraid it'll be like a license for her to have sex: Check your fucking head, you naive twit. Kids are going to fuck when they want to because that's just how these things go. If you're lucky, they'll wait till they're 18, but with the media and pressures in school, you've got to be one lucky parent for that to be the case. Tell them this is a shot to prevent a kind of cancer that can be communicated from one person to another and that it's better safe than sorry. Maybe when your daughter's 33, and has cervical cancer like my friend, you'll be able to be perfectly happy sitting there with your morals keeping you warm at night as she's undergoing chemo and a knife. Or maybe you should get over yourself now and accept the inevitable -- sooner or later your kids are probably gonna be fucking like fiends, like it or no. Hormones speak loud and clear, and judgment's always better in the rearview mirror, whether we're 16 or 46.