Doctors may be as clueless as teen girls when it comes to expectations about HPV vaccines

Real world expectations

“My mom got me that safe sex vaccine.”

That stupefying comment was overheard by my sister at a mall here in Baltimore a few months ago.

Apparently it needs to be said, loud and clear: Gardasil is not a safe sex shot!

Unfortunately, that message isn’t getting through to everyone. According to a new survey, about one in four girls who get an HPV vaccine believe they’re free to have unprotected sex.

Clearly, that’s a huge problem.

But to me, there’s an even bigger problem: Many doctors may be just as clueless as teenage girls when it comes to their expectations about what this vaccine can and cannot do.

Thinking outside the shark cage

From the survey’s results, researchers concluded that doctors “may need to emphasize the limitations of the vaccine and to specifically address that the vaccine does not prevent other sexually transmitted infections.”

The focus is on STDs, obviously. But just as important is this phrase: “emphasize the limitations of the vaccine.”

I wonder if the researchers understand just how profound the scope of that statement really is? Because one thing we rarely see in the mainstream media is ANY emphasis on Gardasil’s limitations.

Let’s start with HPV itself. Less than two percent of all women develop the two types of HPV that are responsible for 70 percent of all cervical cancers. But even when these HPV types develop, they don’t always lead to cancer.

In fact, American Cancer Society guidelines state that 90 percent of adolescent HPV infections are resolved without treatment — the same is true for about 75 percent of HPV infections in adults.

Now, as for the vaccine, at this point nobody has any idea of how effective it is, but just try to find a mainstream doctor who will admit that. There are a couple of studies out there that suggest some level of protection, but in real-world terms nobody really knows, and it will be years before we have a realistic estimate.

What we DO know for sure is this: No vaccine is completely effective.

So it’s like charging someone a high fee to get into a Super Secure Shark-Proof Cage, but not mentioning that there aren’t many sharks in these waters, which is good because sometimes sharks get through the cage.

That’s why some women are going to be shocked in 5, 10, maybe 15 years from now when they’ll say to their doctors, “I CAN’T have cervical cancer! I got the cervical cancer vaccine when I was a girl.”

But they absolutely can have cervical cancer, even with the vaccine, and that’s why EVERY woman who is sexually active must be screened yearly for this disease. When cervical cancer is detected early, it’s highly treatable and the survival rate is more than 90 percent.

This is the ONLY responsible way to prevent cervical cancer deaths. (Yes, there’s abstinence, but history has shown that we humans are not very good at the abstinence thing.)

And then, of course, there’s one more limitation. And it’s huge: the side effects.

This is a topic I’ve covered many times, but if you happen to be new to the HPV vaccine issue and you’ve been led to believe that the side effects are overblown or undocumented, you may be in for a shock.

You can get up to speed on all those details in a video I made, which you can find here.

I only wish all young girls and their parents could watch that video and understand that Gardasil is NOT a cervical cancer vaccine, as the mainstream so often touts it to be.

And it is the farthest thing from a safe sex vaccine.

Sources: 
“Some girls overestimate HPV vaccine protection” Reuters, 1/2/12, reuters.com HPV vaccine protection