Women discuss new HPV vaccine

The IU Women's Student Association sponsored a discussion on HPV and the new vaccine Tuesday night, as part of the ongoing V-Day Campaign.\nCervical cancer, which can be caused by the HPV virus, now can be prevented -- but at a cost, as the vaccine, Gardasil, costs $120 for each of the required three shots and is only available for women.\nOne of the most commonly sexually transmitted diseases, HPV is caused by a virus and is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, not necessarily by sexual intercourse or penetration, said Kathryn Brown, an educator from Health and Wellness Education at the IU Health Center.\nStudents and women interested in receiving the vaccine can call the IU Health Center to make an appointment. \n"I don't think a lot of people know about this," sophomore Cori Lemmon said. "The discussion was helpful because it will save a couple of lives -- lives that wouldn't have been saved before."\nHPV can be treated with medication or it can go away on its own.\n"The good news is that the body clears the virus on its own," Brown said, "and the other good news it that there is a vaccine to prevent."\nBoth men and women can contract HPV, but the only known method of detecting it is through a pap smear, which women should receive once a year, Brown said.\nThere are 100 strains of HPV, but only 30 are STDs; the rest appear on other parts of the body, such as the arms and legs, Brown said. Only about 1 percent to 2 percent of people actually contract the warts associated with HPV.\nThe vaccine can prevent four strains of HPV, but despite the vaccine, women still need to receive pap smears because there are other strands of HPV that cause cervical cancer, Brown said.\nStill, Brown said, it is up to each individual to receive the vaccine, because HPV is slow-acting and easily treated when discovered through a pap smear.\nWhile men can contract HPV, there is no test available to them to detect whether they have HPV, and the vaccine has only been tested on women. The only way men can know is if they have genital warts. Brown also said that if men's sexual partners have the virus, it is likely that they have it, too.\nLemmon said it is helpful for men to know about HPV because it can affect female relatives as well as sexual partners.\nWomen ages 9 to 26 are eligible to receive the vaccine. After 26, however, the vaccine is not as effective, Brown said. But doctors are now recommending that girls receive the vaccine before they enter the sixth grade because they will be getting standard immunizations at the same time.\nGirls ages 11 to 12 are less often sexually active, and the vaccine is most efficient when someone is not sexually active, Brown said.\nDr. Drew Pinsky, a board certified physician and Addiction Medicine specialist, teaches at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Pinsky hosts the radio talk show "Loveline" and offers advice on a wide array of lifestyle issues affecting teenagers and young adults.\nHe recommends that young men should get the HPV vaccines as well, even though it is not been approved for them yet. He also recommends girls receive the vaccine around age 11 or 12, as his children have already received it.\n"If I were a college-aged male, there would be no reason not to. It's a leading cause of death in women," he said in an October interview. "I am confident it will soon receive proper approval."\nWhen asked what else can be done to prevent the spread of HPV, Pinsky said: "Condoms, condoms, condoms."\nThe issue becomes a moral issue because mothers don't want their daughters to receive a vaccine so young for fear their daughters will become promiscuous. But anything to prevent a child from contracting a disease in the future can be a good thing, Brown said. \nWithout the vaccine, HPV is detectable with the yearly pap smear, Brown said.\n"(Cervical cancer) is very preventable without the vaccine as along as pap smears are taken, because once cervical cancer is in the late stages it is not good to have," said Erin Wyatt from the Olcott Center for Cancer Education at Bloomington Hospital.\nA new bill proposed by the Indiana Senate would require all women between the ages of 9 and 26 to have the vaccine, Brown said.\n"I will be amazed if this bill is passed and funded -- I don't think it will be funded," Brown said.\nA similar bill in Michigan did not pass recently, and Wyatt said she feels if it wasn't passed there, it won't pass in Indiana.\n-- Managing Editor Chris Freiberg contributed to this report.