HPV follow-up
First shot scheduled for tomorrow at 6:15 p.m.! The woman who answered the main phone line for Planned Parenthood Massachusetts was not as well-informed as she might have been: she had to check a) if the Somerville office did vaccine shots, and b) if it was okay that I was over 26. Given that I know people over 26 who've gotten shots there, I knew what her answers were going to be, but others might have been discouraged.
One more FAQ that came up in yesterday's comments:
Q: Is it effective in men?
Well, that depends on what you mean by "effective". It's been shown that the vaccine causes men to form similar amounts of the right antibodies -- however, nobody knows if the antibodies prevent infection in men the way they do in women. The former does not always lead to the latter.
Here's the relevant quote from this article: "Although the immune response of men to the vaccine is similar to that of women, it is not yet known whether the vaccine will be protective in men. Many vaccines have comparable efficacy in males and females. However, a subunit vaccine for type 2 herpes simplex virus (HSV gD vaccine), another sexually transmitted viral infection, was found to be effective in women but not in men, which raises the possibility that an analogous difference might be seen with the HPV vaccine. As HSV infection is more likely to be mucosal in women and cutaneous in men, it was speculated that the difference in protection from the HSV vaccine might be attributable to higher antibody titers in mucosa than in skin."
The clinical trials to test whether it prevents the establishment of the virus, and therefore persistent infection, are on now, according to this article.
To summarize: It's probably effective in preventing infection, but we don't know that for sure yet. It can't hurt for a man to get vaccinated. Aside from the needles. ;-)
One more FAQ that came up in yesterday's comments:
Q: Is it effective in men?
Well, that depends on what you mean by "effective". It's been shown that the vaccine causes men to form similar amounts of the right antibodies -- however, nobody knows if the antibodies prevent infection in men the way they do in women. The former does not always lead to the latter.
Here's the relevant quote from this article: "Although the immune response of men to the vaccine is similar to that of women, it is not yet known whether the vaccine will be protective in men. Many vaccines have comparable efficacy in males and females. However, a subunit vaccine for type 2 herpes simplex virus (HSV gD vaccine), another sexually transmitted viral infection, was found to be effective in women but not in men, which raises the possibility that an analogous difference might be seen with the HPV vaccine. As HSV infection is more likely to be mucosal in women and cutaneous in men, it was speculated that the difference in protection from the HSV vaccine might be attributable to higher antibody titers in mucosa than in skin."
The clinical trials to test whether it prevents the establishment of the virus, and therefore persistent infection, are on now, according to this article.
To summarize: It's probably effective in preventing infection, but we don't know that for sure yet. It can't hurt for a man to get vaccinated. Aside from the needles. ;-)