Vaccines | World Tech Today

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have refuted suggestions that higher rates of sexually transmitted infections in adolescents is down to the human papilloma virus vaccine. The uptake of the vaccine, which is being used to prevent cervical cancer in women has been engulfed with a low uptake in the recent past because of concerns about how it does affect adolescent sexual activity.

The study had compared 21,000 girls who had been vaccinated to 186,000 who had not been vaccinated all of whom lived in the same area in the United States. The researchers measured the rates of sexually transmitted infections four times a year, for the year after vaccination and the year prior.

The study found out that vaccinated girls had slightly higher rates for STI’s than their unvaccinated counterparts both before and after vaccination. However, the study found out that the rate of transmission increased as the ladies got older regardless of whether the girls were vaccinated or not.

The findings thus suggest sexual behaviors of the girls remained unaffected regardless of one receiving the vaccine. Researchers maintain, had the vaccine caused an increase in risky sexual behavior, then they would have found a higher STI rate in vaccinated girls.

The findings of the study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine affirms the vaccine does not promote any risky sexual behaviors among those who receive it. The finding goes to reassure people that the vaccine is safe, considering it is one of the few ever developed that can actually prevent cancer.

Health authorities have been running campaigns to have the vaccine administered to pre-teen and teenage boys and girls, to prevent HPV that many at times leads to cancers of the cervix anus penis and mouth. Despite the misconception, Australia has been leading the pack making it a national policy for mandatory HPV vaccination in schools with more than 80% of girls between the ages of 14-16 having already received one.

In the U.S, only 38% of the girls between the ages of 13 and 17 had received all the three recommended vaccines by 2013 with even fewer boys.

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine has revealed that getting the Human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) does not necessarily encourage young girls to be sexually careless. The study addresses a number of myths and fears that people have about HPV vaccination.

HPV vaccine was first produced in 2006, and according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young kids aged 11-12 as well as older teens and young adults should get a series of three HPV vaccine shots.

The vaccination will safeguard them against contracting the common HPV strain that causes genital warts, cervical cancer, and other related diseases. However, these shots work best and are most effective when the teens getting them are not yet sexually active.

About 38% of girls and 14% of boys aged 13-17 had been fully vaccinated as at 2013 (this was the latest available figures); although boys just started to be vaccinated much later than girls.

According to a medical researcher at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Anupam Jena, almost 20% of parents surveyed in given polls believe that HPV shots would encourage young teens to start having sex or to engage in riskier sex behavior. The parents have reasons to believe that their children would develop “a false sense of security” as a result of their vaccine shots, believing it protects them against pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Jena together with other researchers analyzed the insurance records of 21,610 girls aged 12-18 before and after their vaccinations; and they also studied the records of 186,501 unvaccinated girls, and tallied it with the first group according to ages and zip codes.

The researchers found that vaccinated girls had increased rates of herpes, gonorrhea, and Chlamydia among others in the first year before their shots; and according to Jena, this was likely because sexually active girls with experience of infections might be more motivated to get the shots. But for the years afterward, infections different from HPV increased in both groups, and Jena said this was likely because infections would rise with age as more teens get more sexually active.

“This is probably the most definitive evidence yet that vaccinating your child against HPV is unlikely to lead them to be more sexually active, at least in an unsafe way,” Jena said.

The study also finds that some doctors or physicians hesitate to recommend HPV vaccination to young girls because they fear giving “tacit approval for sexual activity,” wrote Robert Bednarczyk, an epidemiologist at Emory University in Atlanta.

“However, just as we do not wait until we have been in the sun for two hours to apply sunscreen, we should not wait until after an individual is sexually active to attempt to prevent HPV infection,” he wrote.

The Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization that investigates sexual health, discovered that about 2% of 12-year-olds, 20% of 15-year-olds, and 61% of 18-year-olds have had sex at least once.

However, Valerie Huber, the president and CEO of the National Abstinence Education Association stated that all sexual infection risks can be avoided be avoiding pre-marital sex. Huber said physicians should encourage teens about abstinence and not “merely encouraging a vaccine that, at best, only reduces the risk of a single STD.”

Source: HPV

Harvard researchers downplays link between riskier sexual behavior among teen girls and HPV vaccine

Study finds HPV vaccines do not encourage risky sexual behaviors in girls