The point of the Gardasil vaccine?

Question

"GARDASIL is the only vaccine that may help guard against diseases that are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) Types 6, 11, 16, and 18"

Highlight the words above "may help".

OK, so say you have slept with more than one partner already, and currently you are in a monogamous relationship. Gardasil "protects" you from forms of HPV that you haven't come into contact with.

So if you are in a monogamous relationship and definitely know that no one is cheating in the relationship then what is the point in the vaccine? Chances are if you have come into contact with HPV from your current partner or previous partners then you already have it, hence the vaccine won't protect you.

Seriously it doesn't make sense to me. Sure it may protect if you have any partners from now on but if you are with "the one" (say for the rest of your life, or a very long time) then can't see how it matters.

Your opinion?

A couple of points. You know that you partner won't cheat because you are in fully trusting relationship. If you thought your partner would cheat, then you wouldn't be in the relationship to start with. So protection against these sounds crazy (in an ideal world).

Someone below said a lifetime of security, how do YOU know this as it's a relatively new vaccine.

Overall I see both sides and can't see why you would want it and also why not.

Answer 1

Okay, so I'm in a trusting relationship and know my partner won't cheat (how can one KNOW this?) on me. I haven't gotten the HPV shot b/c I don't thus far have HPV and my loving partner doesn't have it.

The next day I kiss said loving partner as he goes to work and then he gets into a car accident and dies. Oh, ****, didn't see that one coming. I'll probably find a new lover eventually.

Guess I need Gardisil.

Answer 2

The point is: THE WORLD ISN'T IDEAL.

If the world was ideal, we'd all be abstinent till marriage, we'd only have one sexual partner for our ENTIRE lives and rapes and sexual assaults would never be an issue.

Then in that case, there wouldn't be any need to vaccinate people as early as age 9 against a virus that is sexually contracted by direct skin contact.

But rapes happen. People who don't know they have HPV pass it around (men are the silent reservoirs because they seldom experience symptoms compared to women). Because some people's definitions of sex are so narrow, they believe that dry humping is totally safe (which it isn't). People have more than one partner. People divorce, remarry.

It's a set of 3 jabs. I costs about as much as a trip to Disneyland when you include parking and food). It's a small price to pay for a lifetime of security.

As for the "may help" part? The clinical trials showed nearly 100% efficacy against those strains. But if you magnify that <1% by millions of vaccinated people, a few of them simply won't take the immunity. So you cannot say "will help" because in legalese, it ain't true.

So let's accept that the world isn't perfect and take the precautions that let us live as safely as possible given the conditions.

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Okay askerboy, if you think a person's going to cheat, you're right, you probably wouldn't be in a relatioship with them. But guess what! it happens. People do bad things. Even people who you wouldn't guess were capable of doing bad things will do bad things. Congratulations to you if you've had the luxury of total fidelity from a partner. But not all of us have. I and MANY other people have been VICTIMS of people's dark hearts. I don't choose to be with bad guys. I'm not attracted to rebels. I like church-going boys with high educations and vocabularies to match. But I've had my share of heartbreak. So don't judge us by the hurt others have inflicted upon us.

As for the durability of the vaccine, they've already done longitudinal studies. Very few drugs have been studied the way Gardasil has. It had a remarkably long clinical trial and showed extraordinary rates of efficacy. So far, *no* vaccine has ever shown the same kind of promise and effectiveness as we've seen with Gardasil. Any examination of medical literature can show this.

Look, if your prerogative is to stay unvaccinated, then so be it. But to tell other people that it's not a good idea is naive at best, and downright deadly on the extreme end. 4000 thousand AMERICAN women die of cervical cancer every year. I highlight American because it's not as if they're third-world. Thousands of girlfriends, wives, daughters, mothers and grandmothers will die because the world was less than perfect. Who are you to judge them for that?

Answer 3

typically Gardasil is prescribed ideally to younger girls who arnt sexually active yet, to whom this would be a great advantage. As to the whats the point question, how do you know for sure you will always be with that person and the will never cheat? you don't so this offers some form of protection.