The Truth About HPV

It is a typical Thursday night on a college campus, and the students are ready to go out to celebrate the week’s (almost) end. Young women with stylishly coiffed hair and carefully applied eye make-up seem to overrun the campus with the noisy clacking of their sleek stilletos, as they head out to their favorite spots which include various bars, clubs and parties. Through a haze of beautiful faces, pitchers of drinks, and seductive smiles, the events of the night will inevitably be unclear upon retrospect for many of the participants. How many will wake up with a hangover tomorrow morning? How many will regret their actions? And how many will contract HPV?

After hearing much buzz about the new HPV vaccine and discovering that three young females who are very close to me have contracted HPV in the past year, I decided it was time to do some research. First of all, what exactly is HPV? HPV, or human papillomavirus, is a term for a sexually transmitted disease which has over one hundred types. It is spread by sexual contact – meaning any skin-to-skin touching of the genital areas including the skin of the penis, the area outside the vagina (the vulva), the anus, the cervix, the rectum, or the linings of the vagina. The most common type of HPV does not include any symptoms and is usually naturally fought off by the body’s immune system. However, the high risk types of HPV cause abnormal Pap tests and can lead to many types of cancer, mainly cervical. Some strains of the virus cause genital warts.

HPV rates in the United States are climbing fast. It is estimated that approximately twenty million people are currently infected. At least fifty percent of sexually active people will have HPV at some point in their lives. By the age of fifty, eighty percent of women will have contracted HPV. Over six million Americans will contract an HPV infection this year, and the rates are rising. As college-aged females, it is very important that we get tested and vaccinated.

The real danger of HPV is that it often goes undetected. For the vast majority of cases, men are mere carriers of HPV and rarely know that they have it. HPV puts infected women at a much higher risk because of the potential of this disease to cause cervical cancer. Besides the rare case that an infected person will develop genital warts (which are usually moist and flesh-colored or pink, sometimes cauliflower shaped, and appear on or around the genital area), there are no visible signs of HPV. In most situations, women discover that they have HPV by having a pap test done which comes back abnormal, meaning that there are abnormal precancerous or cancerous cells in the cervix.

Now, what about the vaccine? Gardasil is the newly developed vaccine which is the only one to cure infections caused by the human papillomavirus. It is suggested that women be vaccinated with Gardasil long before sexual contact, but for many of us, that is an impossibility.

However, Gardasil is still recommended for females ages nine to twenty-six and will prevent the HPV strains which cause 70% of cervical cancer and 90% of genital warts. The vaccine is given as a series of three injections in the arm over six months. Although it can cause fever, nausea, dizziness, and pain around the injection site, I would say it’s worth it! Even after vaccination, it is important to continue to get regular pap tests, as HPV can take many years to show up.

Today, sexually active college-aged women are at a huge risk for HPV, along with other STDs. There is no cure. Even if you practice safe sex, condoms and birth control pills do not present any prevention against HPV. It is very important to increase awareness of HPV so the epidemic will stop. Tell your friends. Get vaccinated for HPV. It could save your life.

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Sources Cited:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. March 30th, 2007. <http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/>.

Merck. March 30th 2007. <http://www.gardasil.com>.

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