Health and Safety - New York Times Examines Providing HPV Vaccine To Boys In Effort To Reduce Cervical Cancer Rates

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New York Times Examines Providing HPV Vaccine To Boys In Effort To Reduce Cervical Cancer Rates
The New York Times on Sunday examined the possibility of providing human papillomavirus vaccines to boys in an effort to reduce cervical cancer rates. According to the Times, Merck will submit data to FDA this year seeking approval for its HPV vaccine Gardasil to be administered to boys. Gardasil is already approved for boys in Australia, Mexico and the European Union (Hoffman, New York Times, 2/24).

Gardasil in clinical trials has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection with HPV strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases, and about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which cause about 90% of genital warts cases. GlaxoSmithKline's HPV vaccine Cervarix also has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection with HPV strains 16 and 18 (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 1/16). Cervarix, which has not shown protection against genital warts, is currently under review by FDA and is being studied in boys in Finland to determine whether vaccinating boys could help eradicate cervical cancer.

According to the Times, Gardasil likely would be marketed to boys and their parents as a way to prevent genital warts and as an altruistic way to prevent cervical cancer by preventing the transmission of the virus to girls. In addition, the vaccines could be found to provide other benefits for males because HPV also causes anal, penile, and head and neck cancers, the Times reports.

Richard Haupt, Merck's executive director of clinical research, said that Gardasil has a "very clear benefit" for boys and men in preventing genital warts, even if boys or their parents do not feel "an altruistic reason to get the vaccine." Susan Rosenthal, a specialist in adolescent psychology at the University of Texas-Galveston and a Merck adviser, said that although genital warts are not "life-threatening," they are "very stressful." She added that "[p]sychologically," genital warts are "not an insignificant infection."

Some reports have found that U.S. parents support the idea of making HPV vaccines available to both boys and girls. However, studies have not determined whether parents would consider the vaccine for their own sons. According to the Times, some parents "automatically dismiss" vaccinating their sons with Gardasil in part because of a "suspicion" of new vaccines and pharmaceutical companies. Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, said older boys might see benefits in receiving the vaccine because they could tell a potential partner they have been vaccinated and would seem like "less of a risk" and "more of a humanitarian" (New York Times, 2/24).