Remarkable Vaccine News; but it’s not what you think!

On March 26, the CDC published a research piece on the transmission of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is the virus that cause cervical cancer in women, and various cancers of the genitals, mouth and rectal areas also.  This article went largely unnoticed given the constancy barrage of articles and new items on COVID, but it is an incredibly important piece of information.

The researchers looked a rate of transmission of HPV both before and after routine implementation of the HPV vaccine in girls and women which started in 2006.   When comparing rates of transmission from the pre vaccine era to rates in 2018, there was an 80% drop in infections reported in those under 25 years of age. This is nothing short of remarkable and indicates that the vaccine is working extremely well, even though the rates of immunization hover around 50% nationwide (some states as low as 30%, others as high as 78%, as of 2018). This is due in no small part to “herd immunity”.  Have you heard that before?   The same scientific phrase all of you have heard regarding COVID vaccine has been clearly shown to have happened with the HPV vaccine!  

This study therefore tells us that thousands of women who may have been infected with this disease have avoided it through immunization, and by logical extension may have avoided death and illness caused by cervical (and other) cancer.  What a remarkable achievement. We will never know whose lives have been saved or whose lives have been affected by avoiding this terrible form of cancer. In addition, this again confirms the concept of herd immunity, a concept dismissed by many vaccine deniers. 

If you have given your child the HPV vaccine, congratulations on protecting your kid from a future cancer diagnosis or other disease caused by HPV.  Is it not our duty as parents to protect our kids?  Thanks for doing this, and encourage those around you to do the same. The data is impressive.