p3x.deI got the HPV vaccine
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I had been meaning to do this for a long time and finally got around to it. It’s not free for people in my age group but it turns out my insurance from work covered the cost and I just paid an injection fee.
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Well they say 60% of people have sexual activity at the age of 18. But that’s basically also their take on it. We need more studies on those factors.
I don’t think controlling for infection makes sense. You’d just get the result, it’s 95% effective if you’re not infected. And maybe some if you are. Disregarding age and all other factors. That’s how medication gets approved. But that’s not what we’re interested in so they specifically excluded those studies. What we want to know is, given you’re a random person from the streets, you don’t know if you have HPV or catch it tomorrow… What’s your best option? That’s why they’re probing for other factors. If you already did a good test (which seems to be problematic) and know you’re not infected, just get the shot, it’s already proven to work, we don’t need studies on that.
But is it? It’s possible it gets less effective with age even if you aren’t infected. Adult immune systems are different from those of children and teenagers, after all.
On the other hand, if you’ve never had (unprotected) sex, or at least have only had a very small number of partners, you can be reasonably certain that you are not yet infected. For people like this it would be useful to know if the vaccine is still effective even if they’re older.
Hmmh yeah, from reading the article I’d say you can’t be too sure. I didn’t find any solid numbers to back up the claim. Seems to be like with other STIs and infections. Protection helps, but not fully. And as it’s infectious, a low number of contacts shouldn’t make you certain about anything. A lot of adults have it, so maybe once is one too many. And with this virus you kinda never know if you’re infected because 90% of infections come without symptoms. You can also get them years later. And there doesn’t even seem to be consensus what a negative test means. Could still have the virus in you, just at some undetectable level. And seems they’re not yet really sure about what consequences that has on cancer. Also they detected virus strains on fingertips, hands. And there seem to be other ways of contracting it, although that’s way less likely.
I see one clear winner here. And that’s the vaccine, before getting infected. Whatever that means for an individual. And sure, use protection, that lowers the odds of so many things, including this.