Clearing Up HPV Myths

(CBS)  The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most commonly transmitted sexually transmitted infection. It affects more than one in every four sexually active young women.

However, HPV is a confusing and complicated sexually transmitted infection that often is not talked about.

So, on "The Early Show," CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton sat down with four young women, ages 17 to 24, to talk about their misconceptions, fears and questions about HPV.

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To see their entire conversation, click on the video below.


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[Meniskos]

Dr. Ashton made a disturbing statement regarding HPV and men. She said, ". . . they are the vectors, as we say in medicine." She did briefly acknowledge that infected men face cancer risks like women do, and that the vaccine is now available to both genders. However, she didn't mention that men also suffer from what used to be called venereal warts. Thirty years ago, I ran an STD clinic and occasionally dealt with patients who had this problem. Although it was routinely dismissed by most physicians at that time as minor, I was fully convinced that it was readily contagious and not something that could be easily ignored (I can provide particulars to the curious). Fortunately for women, testing is available. Unfortunately for men, there is no FDA approved test, also not discussed by Dr. Ashton. As for the "vector" remark, as a man I don't like being reduced to being referred to as an organism that carries an infection. I think an apology is appropriate.

[hilllaguna]

If you are only referring to cervical cancers, then describing men a vectors is appropriate, and a as someone that ran a medical clinic, this should be obvious to you and in medical phraseology appropriate. I think that for the most part the ability to transmit something else (not an oncogenic version of HPV) is a secondary component of the story. While not pleasant, no one ever died from benign genital warts (papillomas), nor the vast majority of other HPV etiology warts that occur on the feet, hands etc. TV stories have a fixed timeline. Given that, what is the best message that can be delivered? Spending a lot of time on benign warts when you have a national audience that has not heard much about HPV or the CANCERS that it causes, certainly seems more important, when the very nature of sound bite dissemination of important information has unfortunately become the staple of TV reporting, and even the way that consumers only superficially wish to look at things.

[hilllaguna]

I think there was a huge missed opportunity here. This discussion was 99% about women and cervical cancer related to HPV infection. A huge fact that was left out was that out of the 130 known HPV's today was that only 9 are definitively known to be oncogenic, with another 6 suspected of being so. So an infection with one of the other types does not even lead to a cascade of negative events. Those are a huge percentage of the CDC 80% number.

More people will develop oral cancers as a result of HPV16 infections than those that develop cervical cancer. More people will die (almost 3 times as many) from oral cancers. Men get more oral cancers than women that are HPV+. As an organization that daily fields these very kinds of questions and more, this story missed the mark. The questions we get daily are much more specific than this related to sexual behaviors, and the implications in marriages and sexually intimate partnerships. The Oral Cancer Foundation, is also a funder of research into HPV disease with NCI and Dr. Maura Gillison, first at Johns Hopkins and now at the James Cancer Center. While I am pleased to see the show address this, I think that the story lacked weight where the burden of HPV disease impacts, oral cancers, and to have the discussion be gender based made it lopsided Your doctor talked about men being vectors, which is only a passing means of addressing their involvement as they become cancer patients themselves. More information at www.oralcancerfoundation.org a 501c3 non profit charity.

[goffredo29]

One myth that I'm sure Dr. Ashton didn't mention is that men can't receive the HPV vaccine. Thousands of men have, "off label" and out of pocket, because it protects against penile, anal and throat cancer as well as genital warts. Qui potest capere capiat.

[ToolMangler1]

"She's a woman, what did you expect. Men don't rate and never will."

That is wrong, but that will be said over and over because as a journalist, she didn't cover all the bases...