As families are dealing with college applications, I’m posting this now, hoping parents, who haven’t had their high school seniors vaccinated, do so this academic year. The logistics of scheduling the vaccinations is much easier while they are living at home.
Good Summary of purpose of vaccine, potential side effects, & timing of vaccinations:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/the-underused-hpv-vaccine/
The article was published in the NYTimes this past Tuesday.
Always a good reminder, thanks!
the gardasil 9 vaccine is also now available
YES! My dearest friend died at 38 from a cancer this vaccine prevents. My 3 kids have all been vaccinated.
I’m very sorry for your loss, @Leafyseadragon 
PSA: I’d do a little research before having your child get this vaccine. It’s a vaccine that they can wait until 18 to have, and decide for themselves as adults. My cousin dearly wishes she had done some research before having her oldest daughter get this vaccine. The younger ones will not be getting it.
Yes, do the research and see that this is an extremely safe vaccine that should be given as young as possible to reduce the chances of contracting and spreading HPV and reduce the risk of cancer later in life.
@Trisherella … Specifically why does your cousin wish she would not have given this vaccine to her daughter?
@romanigypsyeyes thank you for your input in supporting this thread!
@Leafyseadragon - I regret to hear about your friend, so sad.
@MotherOfDragons thank you for information about gardisil 9
And, to all, PLEASE READ the NYT article… and, if like Trisherella, you have doubts, by all means do more research.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/the-underused-hpv-vaccine/
The HPV vaccination is to protect self and others, boys as they become men, girls as they become women, and their partners. There are many types of cancers (besides cervical), like throat cancer, and other conditions, like genital warts, that the papillomavirus (HPV) and its variants can cause & this vaccine can help prevent.
The vaccine is most effective when administered when young… however, it can be administered until mid-twenties.
Yes. Even if you’re bumping up against 26, please still get it.
Mr R is getting it now even though he’s married (neither of us have HPV) and is turning 26 very shortly. We thought he had the vaccine until his mom gave us his vaccination records and they were not on there. Luckily, our insurance covers it past 26 but most do not!
He doesn’t see much of a point in getting it now but he knows better than to argue with me, especially about vaccines 
The average age of first intercourse for American teens is 17 years. Waiting until a teen is 18 and can make their own medical decisions would mean that the majority of teens would be unprotected against HPV when they initiate sexual activity. Vaccinating in early adolescence means that teens are protected prior to exposure AND that they are more likely to complete the entire series of vaccinations.
@romanigypsyeyes I ask respectfully how you know Mr.R does not have HPV, given there is no test for men?
Unless you are each other’s only partners in any way.
He had never even made out with anyone before me. His only other girlfriend before me wanted to wait until her wedding day to have her first kiss.
My 15 year old son and my college bound daughter have both had it. No kid should wait until the age of 18. Both my kids had it as soon as possible. They are not sexually active, but why would any parent NOT give them a vaccination that prevents certain cancers? I would like to think that CC parents are too intelligent to buy into anecdotal stories of negative reactions. And for parents delaying because their kids aren’t yet sexually active, 1., you can’t be sure, and 2., heaven forbid a child is raped and not protected by this vaccine. There are very few valid reasons for not vaccinating kids, period.
My H is an OB-gyn so obviously passionate about reproductive health. He was an early-adopter and vocal advocate of this vaccine and ensured our kids (young teens at the time it came out) were first in line to get it. It’s a core component of reproductive health. Sadly he still has to combat the misinformation from non-science-based sources (most of whom are trying to tout non-science-based “natural” supplements) who prey on the types of not-very-bright people who think that if something is a chemical, it’s bad but if something has a friendly everyday name it’s good.
There’s really no excuse not to give your kids the vaccine. I applaud Romani for having her H get it even if he hadn’t gotten it as a young teen.
We are on a board that deals with education. So let’s hear it for science.
My D is almost 25. When the vaccine came out, she was about 16. Our pediatrician (of blessed memory, sadly) was a man I trusted implicitly. He said to wait a year to make sure that there were no side effects. When he felt it was safe, he called me and we set up her shot schedule. Her arm swelled a little with the first one but she had no other adverse effects. I asked about getting the shot for my 4 sons because I wanted to protect their future partners. It took a short while but eventually my insurance company began covering it for males and I had all of them vaccinated. They ranged in age from about 13 to 22 when they were vaccinated. The oldest was probably sexually active when he got the shots but none of the others were. However, my oldest has had the same, first gf since age 17.
I am old enough to have had some of the childhood diseases we now immunize against - measles, mumps, rubella and the chicken pox. My father had friends who died of diphtheria and were paralyzed with polio. My parents signed my sister and I up for every shot that existed. My grandparents knew Jonas Salk in the old neighborhood and I was introduced to him once as being a child whose life he had saved. I did the same for my kids. My two oldest had the chicken pox and it was horrible. My oldest was so sick at 2 1/2 with the pox that I had to keep him doped up on Benadryl for two weeks on doctor’s orders. When the shot came out, I got it for my two middle sons. Due to the fact that some parents didn’t believe in that shot, my S17 was exposed to the chicken pox at 8 months old and had a case even worse than my oldest son had. I had to wean him because the pox INSIDE his mouth made it too painful for him to nurse. He was too young for the shot. Now, it’s required and I had to file a doctor’s letter in his file stating that he didn’t have the shot because he had the illness.
On my podium - immunize your children. It does save lives, not just theirs but those of the people who for legitimate medical reasons can’t be immunized.
Excellent reminder! So glad it is approved and available for boys now as well.
Cancer risks aside, even battling the genital warts can be a huge burden on both provider and patient.
For those who think their kids can check out their partners ahead of time to “screen” for genital warts I would offer this: these are not huge unsightly lesions that are super easy to spot. They are flesh colored and even sometimes with a huge exam light shining down on the area are hard to differentiate. I can only imagine how hard they would be to spot in the dark in the “heat of the moment.”
And eradicating them is not always easy. The topical treatment can burn and irritate the skin and almost always has side effects. Sadly, I’ve seen women into their 50s with genital warts so bad they’ve had to radiation treatment. The treatment was extensive and full of horrible adverse reactions—the radiation burned through her rectum and she had to have a colostomy. So genital warts are just not a few annoying skin lesions. They can have lifelong ramifications.
The most common reaction to vaccine education attempts here in the deep Bible belt south was: my daughter will be practicing abstinence so she won’t need the vaccine.
My response? “oh, so you can guarantee that her future partner will have had ZERO exposures? Because if he had even one exposure/experience, your daughter will be exposed to his partner.”
All three of the series have been completed at our house.
A lot of the parental resistance to this vaccine I have observed had to do with the assumption that having had the vaccine, adolescents would feel there was no impediment to having sex. Therefore, the vaccine was indirectly “encouraging” sex.
I’m just going to leave it at that…
@Nrdsb4 Ugh. That’s like saying that seatbelts encourage unsafe driving, or that quadruple bypass operations encourage lifelong McDonald’s consumption.
Re: #16 and #17
Perhaps that is also some of the reason that people resist the hepatitis B vaccine, since hepatitis B is commonly (though not exclusively) sexually transmitted. I.e. the idea that giving one’s kid that vaccine is admitting that one’s kid may become sexually active earlier than the parents want.