[Good news. But.... how VERY annoying that not a word is said in this story about the need of Gardasil for men in terms of gay men's health. The frame here is only around the male role in protecting women from cervical cancer. HELLO! How about protecting gay men from anal cancer??? It's not just a Farrah thing. The lives of gay men, and gay boys, COUNT, dammit.]via the Wall Street Journal
The vaccine Gardasil won regulators' approval for use in males, setting the stage for a debate over whether boys should routinely receive an inoculation used to prevent cervical cancer in women.
The Food and Drug Administration found Gardasil, which has been approved for use in females since 2006, to be safe and effective in protecting males from genital warts. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must decide whether to recommend its routine use in boys, a move that could lead states to mandate inoculation and may prompt health insurers to pay for it. A panel of experts advising the CDC is scheduled to debate the matter next week.
The question isn't straightforward, doctors and infectious-disease experts say, because boys may not directly benefit from being inoculated. Only about 1% of sexually active males in the U.S. develop genital warts, which can be irritating but aren't life-threatening, but males' vaccinations could help women because the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes the warts can lead to cervical cancer.
Read the rest.
Related:
Anal cancer prevention: how we are failing men who have sex with men
If anything is mentioned about Gardasil being ok for gay men to use to protect from anal cancer, it would be seen as an approval of the "gay lifestyle". Especially if there is any mention of gay boys or young men using it. Parents would flip.
ReplyDelete