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> 4) the vaccines likely have little effect on anything unless you were vaccinated as a child (and are a biological woman).

This guidance is changing. Vaccinating men protects women. Also just because you were infected with one strain, that doesn't mean you can't contract another, possibly oncogenic one. Get vaccinated, it protects against the most common cancer-causing strains. I did, why would I want to unknowingly give someone cancer?

>> 4) the vaccines likely have little effect on anything unless you were vaccinated as a child (and are a biological woman).

> This guidance is changing. Vaccinating men protects women.

Yeah, it was fucking like pulling teeth getting my HPV vaccine as an adult male. "It's for teenage girls" comments from multiple health care professionals.

I only took the first fucking dose in the regime, and none of my health care providers now offer low cost or covered options. I had to spend Covid money when I had it. I still need the rest of the regime.

Thank you thread for the reminder.

It’s “like pulling teeth” because the guidance isn’t changing (at least not because of evidence).

There seems to be a very motivated contingency who want to spin a story that male vaccination for HPV has benefits for women. The problems with this story are:

1) Efficacy of the current vaccines for women are incredibly high. Vaccinating young women, alone, is basically enough. Whatever benefits you're imagining must therefore be marginal.

2) Efficacy of current vaccines for men are (surprisingly) low [1], so it’s hard to claim secondary benefits for other people without substantial additional evidence.

It’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that the HPV vaccine is an overall good, should be on the schedule for young women, and yet does not need to be administered to men. Giving it to men (particularly older men) is not supported by data at this time, which is why your doctors don’t make it easy for you to get it.

[1] Again, refer to https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8706722/

See table 4. In a naive population of men, the efficacy against DNA detection of HPV runs around 50%, and in men who may or may not have the virus, the number is lower. Efficacy against persistent infection is similar. Compare to tables 1-3 for women, where efficacy nears 100% in some populations.

It's a relatively new vaccine, this commonly happens for a few reasons:

1. They start with a cautious roll out to the highest lifetime risk population (teenage girls in this case)

2. They may be limited by vaccine stocks as it does take time to build up product. There's an entire world to vaccinate, billions of doses needed

3. They need time to prove that it will be useful to give to other populations - in this case, adults

There's no conspiracy here, you had to push to get it because you were going against the existing recommendations, which were reasonable. Not because of your gender.

Those recommendations have likely changed recently because when I went in for shots last month (male, 40s) they immediately recommended that me and my partner both get it.

Does it not prevent cancer in the throat in men? Not sure why that would be women only.

The situation is pretty clear when you're a woman who got cancer from her boyfriend who knew he had HPV and didn't tell her, or didn't get vaccinated because he didn't feel like it. I think most people would want to avoid that situation. The genital warts thing is just embarrassing but another good-enough reason to get vaccinated early.

On Permanence: 10-20% of HPV infections either don't go away, or go dormant and recur throughout your lifetime. These strains are the ones likely to cause cancer. Low-risk ones cause genital warts that continue causing warts throughout your lifetime. High-risk ones may cause cancer.

The vaccine is available up until 45 years old. Worst case it does nothing, best case it prevents genital warts and cancer.

> The situation is pretty clear when you're a woman who got cancer from her boyfriend who knew he had HPV and didn't tell her

You can make up “just so” stories to justify anything.

The point is, the story you’re telling isn’t likely to occur if the woman is vaccinated.

The vaccine is incredibly effective in young women, and only borderline effective if administered in older men and women who have never been infected. Long-term efficacy in young men is less certain than for young women.

> Low-risk ones cause genital warts that continue causing warts throughout your lifetime.

Again, no. Most infections clear on their own. You are correct that rarely some infections are persistent or dormant, and that these sometimes lead to cancer. But these are the minority.

#4, anything that reduces cancer risk is a plus in my book, regardless to time and gender