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CDC: Boys Should Get HPV Shot, Too

Vaccine will protect boys from some cancers, and lower transmission risk

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 25, 2011 12:01 PM CDT

(Newser) – A CDC committee voted overwhelmingly today to recommend the HPV vaccine for boys as well as girls, reasoning that it will protect them from some cancers of the penis and rectum, while also preventing them from transmitting HPV to the people they sleep with. Twelve panel members voted for the recommendation, with one abstaining, CNN reports. The committee recommends boys get the shot as early as age 9.

The vaccine has been FDA approved for males since 2009, but it hasn’t been marketed toward them. The CDC is making this push now in part because not as many girls are being vaccinated as doctors had hoped. “If the boys are also immunized, it reduces the transmission back and forth,” one CDC adviser explained.

A bottle of the Human Papillomavirus vaccination is seen at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine on September 21, 2011 in Miami, Florida.
A bottle of the Human Papillomavirus vaccination is seen at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine on September 21, 2011 in Miami, Florida.   (Getty Images)
University of Miami pediatrician, Judith L. Schaechter, M.D., gives an HPV vaccination to a 13-year-old girl in her office at the Miller School of Medicine on September 21, 2011.
University of Miami pediatrician, Judith L. Schaechter, M.D., gives an HPV vaccination to a 13-year-old girl in her office at the Miller School of Medicine on September 21, 2011.   (Getty Images)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 11 comments
baranoww
Oct 26, 2011 1:08 AM CDT
Especially the ones who have sex with men or who do not abstain from sex until they marry a non infected female.
brawne
Oct 25, 2011 10:10 PM CDT
Interesting story--know how Johns Hopkins came to be?  Katherine Hepburn's sister and husband started it to deal with honeymoon syphilis.  Women back then were all virgins except for the prostitutes and men could go to them as much as they wanted.  But they got all kinds of wicked stuff and on the honeymoon with their new virgin brides they infected them.  When they gave birth the babies were blind--happened to Spencer Tracy or deaf or whatever and then the girls would die young cause it is different being the catcher as opposed to the receiver.  Al Capone died a horrible death in Alcatraz from syphilis in the brain--means he had it for decades.  It's still around.
onbeshero
Oct 25, 2011 7:01 PM CDT
Read the fine print, folks!  It doesn't prevent all HPV transmissions.

 
HPV • vaccine • sexually transmitted diseases • human papilloma virus • CDC

 
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