HPV Vaccination of Males Not Cost-Effective

In the United States, this use of Gardasil — i.e., vaccinating boys to protect against genital warts — was recently recommended for approval by a US Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee, as reported by Medscape Oncology.

The editorialists make one other point. The majority of cervical cancer (>80%) occurs in developing countries and in areas of low resources, which cannot afford or access HPV vaccines. "Targeting young women in these populations for HPV vaccination and screening older women would have a bigger effect on reducing the burden of cervical cancer than widespread vaccination of young men from resource-rich areas," they state.

If the entire female population were vaccinated, and everyone were heterosexual, it wouldn't be necessary to vaccinate the boys to protect the girls.

Boys and men who have same-sex intercourse are at risk for anal and throat cancer.

"Good coverage of females obviates the need to vaccinate boys."

This assumes that "covering" young women will be universal and, as said above, that men do not have sex with men. This is sexist and ill-informed.

A methodological note on this study: Their main outcome, QALYs, is weighted against deaths from cervical cancers caused by HPV strains covered by the vaccine. Because men don't die of genital warts from any strain, it appears better to vaccinate women.

A thought occurred to me reading this post. My husband is thoroughly unable to get pregnant, yet he is the one, not me, who underwent definitive surgical sterilization due to safety and cost. He sucked it up and took one for the team. I'm thinking guys can suck it up with the Gardasil as well and roll up their sleeves and take one for the team (after considering risks like women should who choose to receive the vaccine), but that's just me on a tangent.

2nd CEG. There's no way to test men (as far as I know) so immunizing them seems like an extra (needed) step to protecting women from cervical cancer. And with many people not interested in vaccinating for HPV in the first place, are we really in any danger of running out of supplies by "wasting" it on the guys?