Comment by carlmr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by carlmr | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>Basically, the vaccines dont work with prior exposure, and there is no test to know if men have been exposed. So thats why there is no focus on men, and why initially men were only approved for use if they were under 26 years old, based purely on probabilities they havent been exposed yet.

The vaccine (Gardasil) protects against 9 strains. Even if you've been exposed to 1 strain, it protects against the other 8 strains.

>Also at one point in time, it wasnt linked to cancers affecting men, and men were seen only as carriers. Now it seems any area of flesh exposed to HPV strains are at risk of cancer there.

Even if it didn't do anything in men, it's stupid not to vaccinate as many people as possible to get herd immunity. We understand this for a hundred years now with other vaccines, why not this one?

Apart from that it's not a bad guess to think that if it causes one cancer it will be causing other types of cancer as well. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

>The age of male coverage has been expanded to like mid-40s by now.

Sadly in Germany it's still only for younger men. And older men weren't offered the vaccine at all when they were younger, so they never got the offer. I paid out of pocket for it, but it's still stupid that we're still putting a part of the population at unnecessary risk for cancer, and also decreasing herd immunity at the same time.

Lack of HPV vaccination is just a symptom of lack of understanding of science and statistics in politics.

>Lack of HPV vaccination is just a symptom of lack of understanding of science and statistics in politics.

At some point it stops being about science or understanding and starts being wholly about politics. There's a lot more "well these demographics or institutions f-ing hate me so I'm sure as shit not taking their word for anything" going around than there was a decade ago.

> There's a lot more "well these demographics or institutions f-ing hate me so I'm sure as shit not taking their word for anything"

This would be fine. It goes further: not only rejecting the institutions, but concluding adversely based on their advocating for something.

Just wondering how much did you pay for it? Here in Spain I also can't get it in my 40s and it costs 800 euro, which is a lot on a Spanish wage. And the doctors say there isn't much point because I've probably been exposed already (considering number of partners that's likely). And then the effectiveness is supposed to be massively reduced. Still, if it were 200€ I'd do it. There's only one place here where I can get it so I wonder if it's cheaper elsewhere.

>Just wondering how much did you pay for it?

180€ per injection. The normal schedule is 3 injections. (first, 1 month, 6 month). However I checked and NHS (UK) did a study on it that showed a single injection provides the same protection as 3, so they changed their injection schedule to single injection for people under 25, and 2 injections (first + 6-24 months) for over 25s due to the expectation that older immune systems take longer to adapt.

The German (StIKo) recommendation is still 3, but I prefer listening to the NHS here because they have been more scientific about this in the past and seem to be actively studying this stuff.

I asked my doctor and they said I can pick the schedule I want, since it's not insured anyway. So I picked the two injection schedule. So that makes 360€ for me. If the NHS study holds you could probably pick a single injection and already have most or all of the protection. I picked two because I figured it's still recommended for my age group that way.

>And the doctors say there isn't much point because I've probably been exposed already (considering number of partners that's likely).

My doctor said the same, but the NHS says it's still useful from their studies. Especially since Gardasil protects against 9 variants. It's unlikely you've been exposed to all 9 variants.

I am not a doctor, so I can only tell you what I've found helpful in making my decision.

Aha thank you! I really appreciate your feedback here. It's a bit more expensive here, just over 200 per injection but that sounds about right then. I will see about getting the 1 or 2 then!

You're welcome!

I forgot to link the sources the 9-valent vaccine is the current Gardasil:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-dose-of-hp...

Take a vacation to somewhere in Africa, see the Mara and get the vaccine there. It does cost about $40 per dose…

I made the mistake of arguing with a somebody on facebook about Gardasil once. In the end I asked her flat out would she rather her daughter got cervical cancer, or had the vaccine. She said she chose cancer.

Some people you just can't reach. I stopped arguing at that point.

Do you think part of their resistance to the vaccine is that HPV is a sexually transmitted disease? The parent probably wants to believe that their daughter can avoid STIs ... because magically thinking.

If it is a pure STI it can be avoided by celibacy. This is not a protocol most humans are comfortable with though. Unfortunately most disease are just mainly spread through sexual contact and have additional vectors so vaccination might still be preferable

Reply on news.ycombinator.com