13 comments

  • stared 1 hour ago
    I would like to add:

    - HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives. Unless you plan to remain completely celibate, you are likely to contract a strain.

    - Sooner is better, but vaccination can be done at any age. Guidelines often lag behind, but vaccination makes sense even if you are currently HPV-positive. While it won't clear an existing infection, it protects against different strains and reinfection (typically body removed HPV in 1-2 years). See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38137661/

    - HPV16 is responsible for a large number of throat cancers (around 50% in smokers and 80% in non-smokers!). This affects both men and women. Vaccinating men is important for their own safety and to reduce transmission to their partners.

    • shevy-java 1 hour ago
      > Unless you plan to remain completely celibate

      You can get HPV without sex too.

      https://www.cdc.gov/sti/about/about-genital-hpv-infection.ht...

      "HPV is most commonly spread during vaginal or anal sex. It also spreads through close skin-to-skin touching during sex"

      This focuses on sex, but any virus that can be found on skin, also has a chance to be transmitted without sex just as well. Admittedly the chance here for HPV infection is much higher with regard to sex, but not non-zero otherwise. The HeLa cells also contain a HPV virus in the genome, though this was probably transmitted via sex:

      "The cells are characterized to contain human papillomavirus 18 (HPV-18)"

      HPV-18. I think HPV-18 may in general be more prevalent than HPV-16.

    • elric 26 minutes ago
      I, a male, got vaccinated with the Gardasil 9 vaccine shortly before turning 40. Convincing my doctor to prescribe it wasn't terribly difficult, I told them a few things about my sexual history and explained some of my sexual plans, and that was that.

      I wish more people would get vaccinated.

      • EE84M3i 9 minutes ago
        How much did it cost? I've considered it but it seems the only option for me is to pay for it out of pocket (~$1000 for the full course), which seems kind of not worth it at this point.
    • phkahler 7 minutes ago
      >> HPVs are extremely common: 80% of men and 90% of women will have at least one strain in their lives.

      This statistic seems to be used by some people to avoid the vaccine - they figure they've already had it at some point. The biggest problem with that logic is that not all strains are as dangerous and they probably have not contracted 16 or 18 specifically. The other problem is there's still a good number of people who have never had it and shouldn't assume they have because its common.

    • formerly_proven 29 minutes ago
      > - Sooner is better, but vaccination can be done at any age. Guidelines often lag behind, but vaccination makes sense even if you are currently HPV-positive.

      However, the vaccination is expensive (~1k) and it is difficult to find doctors who will do non-recommended vaccinations for self-payers.

      YCMV

      • elric 25 minutes ago
        > However, the vaccination is expensive (~1k)

        Depends entirely on where you are and what your healthcare situation is. Mine cost me ~100eur.

  • kasperni 2 hours ago
    It has really been a great success in Denmark.

    In the 1960s, more than 900 people were diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, corresponding to more than 40 cases per 100,000 Danes.

    Today, that number is below 10 per 100,000 nationwide – and among women aged 20 to 29, only 3 out of 100,000 are affected. This is below the WHO’s threshold for elimination of the disease.

  • coreyh14444 2 hours ago
    Just a quick point as an American living in Denmark, one of the reasons government programs like this work so well is everything is delivered digitally. We have "e-boks" https://en.digst.dk/systems/digital-post/about-the-national-... official government facilitated inboxes so when they need to notify you of vaccinations or whatever else, it arrives to your inbox. And basically 100% of residents use these systems.
    • tokai 1 hour ago
      I fail to see how e-boks makes this work. Younger people check their e-boks less frequently than average, so sending a physical letter to their address would work just as well if not better.

      What makes it work is the public registers.

      • silvestrov 25 minutes ago
        e-boks sends a text message to the phone, so I see it much faster than a paper mail.

        e-boks is like gmail (and others) in that it keeps your old mail. So you can easily find old stuff, a great improvement on paper mail.

        I don't even check my physical mailbox once a week.

        Denmark is one of the very most digital countries. Physical mail is very much on the way out. We no longer has mailboxes to send mail, you have to go to a shop to send letters, which now cost at last $6 per letter due to the low amount of mail sent.

        It is only a matter of less than 10 years before letters will be fully gone.

    • closewith 57 minutes ago
      Okay, well Ireland has similar vaccination rates, broader childhood vaccination coverage, and no central medical records at all, so while e-boks may assist administration, it's certainly not necessary.
      • disgruntledphd2 12 minutes ago
        > no central medical records at all

        Which is bad, we definitely should have them. Referral data appears to be managed through Healthlink, which may just be a privatised not always used medical record system.

    • Muromec 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
      • closewith 56 minutes ago
        So should a desire for privacy preclude access to routine vaccination?
        • lostlogin 41 minutes ago
          How private are you wanting to be? If they don’t know your current status you’d get spammed all the time for various things.

          If you want full privacy you’d get no notifications and would have to go and ask for various things which you many not know exist.

      • nathanaldensr 1 hour ago
        In high-trust societies these things work, yes. Not all societies are high-trust. Often, they once were high-trust but are no longer thanks to sociopathic, non-empathetic actors.
        • throwawayqqq11 1 hour ago
          Funny, how the unreasonable cycle of alternating votes for establishment parties is broken by voting for even more untrustworthy right wing parties.

          We all need something like ranked/list voting and incorporate invalid votes into the result so urgently.

          • Forgeties79 1 hour ago
            I do think people put too much stock in how many things RCV would fix in the US, but I am a big fan of it and it would certainly be a big first step improving representation in this country. Unfortunately, multiple states (all Republican dominated) have already outlawed RCV as an option. So in order to do it you would have to overturn the existing ban as well. It’s ridiculous.
        • closewith 55 minutes ago
          High trust societies generally don't need centralisation to provide positive outcomes.
        • emil-lp 1 hour ago
          > Often, they once were high-trust but are no longer thanks to sociopathic, non-empathetic actors.

          Citation needed.

          • hagbard_c 1 hour ago
            Go and look around in former high-trust societies where this trust has broken down or is breaking down - my points of reference are the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and to a lesser extent the UK - and you'll get your citations. What you'll probably find is that in 'marginalised areas' people have trust in governmental institutions - those which provide social welfare, healthcare, schools and such - while they have little trust in 'other (groups of) people'. In other words they trust the state but distrust their neighbours, especially those from different ethnic groups. If you look in more well-to-do areas you'll find the opposite: people mostly trust their neighbours but they have lost trust in the higher echelons of the state which in their eyes has been instrumental in the dissolution of their former high-trust society. They'll still mostly trust their local police and fire brigade but they see academia and the social workers and soft-on-crime judicial institutions it produces as part of the problem. Any articles produced by academia which claim to provide proof of the opposite are seen in the light of the severe political bias in those institutions - sociology as a discipline has lost nearly all trust due to this - so citing those only feeds the fire.
            • tokai 57 minutes ago
              Sweden is not a society were trust has broken down. Neither is Germany. Maybe the Netherlands can be argued to have a breaking down of trust. Go look at actual data, and don't rely on racist internet memes to form your arguments.
              • hagbard_c 56 minutes ago
                I said where this trust has broken down _or is breaking down_ - the latter is what is happening in the mentioned countries.

                First answer and you directly go to 'racism', that's a rather poor effort. Put some more thought into your replies if you want to be taken seriously.

                • tokai 45 minutes ago
                  I know you said or is breaking down. I'm telling you that its only for Netherlands you can argue a drop in trust. I'm sorry that you take the racist label as an insult. But the Sweden has fallen talking point is a racist lie, so don't perpetuate it if you don't want to be called out on it. Again I invite you to look at data on trust, and stop making stuff up.
                  • CalRobert 14 minutes ago
                    I moved to the Netherlands a couple years ago and it seems pretty nice, curious what evidence there is trust has dropped.

                    The government’s appalling failure wrt housing seems like a pretty valid reason for young people to distrust institutions tbh.

                  • hagbard_c 29 minutes ago
                    Why do you think AfD is close to becoming the biggest party in Germany, why is (or was?) Wilders big in the Netherlands, why is Sverigedemokraterna close to becoming the biggest party in Sweden? Do you think suddenly 25% of the population of these countries has turned rabidly racist?

                    That 'racism' word has lost its meaning due to severe overuse, find another argument. As to finding 'data', that is easy enough if you ask people around you. I live in Sweden and I hear this every day, everywhere, both in the countryside where I live as well as in the more urbanised areas on the west coast where I work and where my daughter goes to school.

                    If you want to get a bit closer to the actual truth than your knee-jerk 'racism' accusation you should look into the clash of cultures - not races - which lies at the bottom of these problems. Go and speak to people from low-trust societies as well as those from high-trust societies and ask them where they put their trust, how they think about their neighbours - not just the ones in the house next door but also those in other areas.

          • Forgeties79 1 hour ago
            Trump rode to the White House pitching that the government is broken/corrupt and as an outsider he would fix it. A significant part of his appeal is that he was a big middle finger to the establishment and current system writ large. This is well studied, documented, and easy to see in our daily lives. How many campaign ads begin with “the system is broken” or “Washington is out of touch”? Nobody ever lost voters for saying the government isn’t doing enough for them and isn’t trustworthy.

            You can look at any Gallup or Pew poll or whatever sources you prefer and you will likely see that Americans have been steadily losing trust in their government. It has been in steady decline since the post-war era with some notable brief increases, but they don’t last.

            >citation needed

            I disagree as it is incredibly easy information to track down. But here you go anyway:

            https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust...

            • arowthway 42 minutes ago
              Obviously social trust in the US has declined and Trump benefited from that. But this is not evidence that the primary cause is sociopathic, non-empathetic actors. Theoretically it could also be things such as increased diversity, loss of shared identity, people acting in good faith but failing to adapt to social media.
              • Forgeties79 36 minutes ago
                That’s fair. I focused on the broader question for some reason. I’ll blame it on morning brain.

                I’ll ask you this: Do you think Donald Trump is a socially adjusted, empathetic person? A lot of people like him currently because he is a bully.

                Edit: I think Nixon is another person whose character deserves scrutiny. His decisions shattered a lot of people‘s perception of the US government.

  • afarah1 1 hour ago
    A comment with an article citing published medical literature on risks associated with this type of vaccine was flagged and hidden. Why? I don't know the author nor am I a medical doctor to understand the topic at depth, so it's a genuine question. Was it misleading? If so, how? That's what the comment was asking, actually, if there were counter-points to the text, which was favorable to live vaccines (e.g. shingles) but critical of those developed with other methods. Is there no merit to that? I genuinely don't know, and since it seems impossible to discuss the topic, it's hard to say.
    • wpietri 37 minutes ago
      I sometimes vouch for incorrectly flagged posts. You got me curious, so I took a look. What I found was a blog from an anonymous conspiracist vaccine opponent claiming to be a doctor. He's a decent writer but in my estimation a loon.

      So I'm fine with it being flagged and decline to vouch for it.

  • nextos 2 hours ago
    Lots of viruses are really oncogenic. The real success here is the ability of Denmark to track effectiveness. It sounds crazy but most countries do not have electronic health record capability to measure the effect of many interventions at population scale. Once good EHRs are rolled out, we will be able to double down on effective interventions, like this one, and vice versa.
    • shevy-java 58 minutes ago
      "Lots of viruses are really oncogenic."

      Hmm. Compared to what measurement? Most viruses are actually not oncogenic.

      From cancer causes, oncogenic viruses are thought to be responsible for about 12% of human cancers worldwide:

      https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/14/7/797

      From what I remember, most viruses are not oncogenic in nature, so I am unsure whether the statement made is correct.

    • closewith 50 minutes ago
      EHRs are definitely not necessary for health surveillance and many countries perform equally or better without centralised records.

      I'm a proponent of EHRs, but the key value is at patient-level, not population level where other approaches perform equally well.

    • spiderfarmer 2 hours ago
      Sadly, no matter how good the data is, some societies will value opinions of uninformed celebrities above facts and reason, leading to a resurgence of preventable diseases.
      • shevy-java 55 minutes ago
        The numbers are quite solid. People who don't want to accept the numbers, need to come up with an explanation why the data can not be trusted. With regard to oncogenic HPV, I think the data is very convincing. To me it was a lot more convincing than the SARS covid datapoints (e. g. the media constantly shifted; I noticed this with regard to Sweden, which had a bad early data due to barely any protection of the elderly, but lateron it still had better data than e. g. Austria which went into lockdown - so Austria had worse data points than Sweden overall. Japan or Taiwan had excellent data points, so the respective governments were much better than either Sweden or Austria. The most incompetent politicans acted in Austria during that time, replacing facts with promo and propaganda. The data points, though, were always solid. I remember I compared this about weekly and it was interesting to me when Austria suddenly surpassed Sweden negatively; the media here in Austria critisized Sweden early on, but once Sweden outperformed Austria in a better, more positive manner, suddenly the media no longer reported that. Private media simply can not be trusted.)
      • jacquesm 2 hours ago
        These celebrities should serve some jailtime. Quackery is criminal, it kills people.
        • alecco 1 hour ago
          Agreed. But we should also stop enabling celebrities when they push popular agendas even if they are correct. For example, climate change.
          • shevy-java 54 minutes ago
            Celebrities in general are quite dubous. See a certain actor suddenly promoting Palantir spysniffing on mankind. I decided that guy won't get a dime from me for the rest of my life - when actors suddenly become lobbyists for Evil, they need to not get any money from regular people really.
        • bethekidyouwant 19 minutes ago
          Exhibit a: “not quackery”
        • im3w1l 1 hour ago
          Idk the Danish approach of opennnes seems to be working for them. They acknowledge it isn't fully effective. They acknowledge that there may be a small risk of side effects. And they tell people it's worth it and to go take it.

          "Since HPV vaccination was implemented in the Danish childhood vaccination programme in 2009, we have received 2,320 reports of suspected adverse reactions from HPV vaccines up to and including 2016. 1,023 of the reported adverse reactions have been categorised as serious. In the same period, 1,724,916 vaccine doses were sold. The reports related to HPV vaccination that we have classified as serious include reports of the condition Postural Orthostatic Tachycardi Syndrome (POTS), fainting, neurological symptoms and a number of diffuse symptoms, such as long-term headache, fatigue and stomach ache."

          "The risk of cervical changes at an early stage was reduced by 73% among women born in 1993 and 1994, who had been vaccinated with the HPV vaccine compared with those who had not been vaccinated."

          "The Danish Health Authority recommends that all girls are vaccinated against HPV at the age of 12. The Danish Health Authori- ty still estimates that the benefits of vaccination by far outweigh any possible adverse reactions from the vaccine."

          https://laegemiddelstyrelsen.dk/en/sideeffects/side-effects-...

          • tokai 1 hour ago
            Its not like it wasn't without issues. You had the documentary from a state funded tv station that uncritically let people claim all kind of issues after getting the vaccine. It drastically lowered the uptake of the vaccine.

            https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6288961/

          • jacquesm 1 hour ago
            > They acknowledge it isn't fully effective. They acknowledge that there may be a small risk of side effects. And they tell people it's worth it and to go take it.

            Those are basic bits of knowledge that apply to most vaccinations.

            The problem is that the quacks diminish the positive effects, exaggerate the negatives and engage in a campaign of fear mongering that costs some people (and in some cases lots of people, see COVID) their lives. They are not only clueless, they are malicious.

            From Gwyneth Paltrow, JFK Jr, all the way to Donald Trump and a whole raft of others the damage is immense. I have a close family member who now is fully convinced of the healing power of crystals and there isn't a thing you can do to reason with people that have fallen into a trap like that.

            • bethekidyouwant 7 minutes ago
              But maybe you have fallen into a trap? Maybe believing in crystals is their own damn fault.
  • shevy-java 1 hour ago
    The data is IMO quite convincing. Harald zur Hausen pointed this out decades ago already; this is another data point that adds to the theory which back then he proposed was fairly new (not that viruses cause cancer, that is much older knowledge, but specifically the role of some HPV strains; Harald died about 2 years ago).
  • esafak 36 minutes ago
    At what age can you start getting vaccinated?
  • garbawarb 2 hours ago
    > Infection with HPV types covered by the vaccine (HPV16/18) has been almost eliminated. Before vaccination, the prevalence of HPV16/18 was between 15–17%, which has decreased in vaccinated women to < 1% by 2021. However, about one-third of women still had HPV infection with non-vaccine high-risk HPV types, and new infections with these types were more frequent in vaccinated than in unvaccinated women.

    I wonder if we'll those non-vaccine strains will eventually become the most prevalent.

    • perlgeek 2 hours ago
      Sounds like in countries like Denmark, they are already on their way to becoming the most prevalent.

      Hope we'll develop vaccines against those too.

      • IndrekR 48 minutes ago
        In my EU country Gardasil 9 is the most common HPV vaccine nowadays. This protects against 9 most common strains. I would assume the same is true in other countries. We have gone from HPV 16/18 -> +6/11 -> +31/33/45/52/58 protection with 2/4/9-valent vaccines.

        Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine

  • Traubenfuchs 2 hours ago
    Everyone already knows!

    HPV vaccination leads to massive reduction in nasopharyngeal, penile and rectal cancer in men.

    The focus of messaging around HPV vaccination on ovarian cancer, female fertility and the age limitations for recommendations / free vaccination in some places are nothing short of a massive public health failure and almost scandal.

    Just truthfully tell the boys their dicks might fall off and see how all of them quicklky flock to the vaccine.

    • jorvi 1 hour ago
      > Just truthfully tell the boys their dicks might fall off and see how all of them quicklky flock to the vaccine.

      Every male above the age of 26 is locked out of the vaccine unless you pay out of pocket, which will be €300-€500 (or even higher).

      It's led to this really weird situation, where HPV vaccination for men is now recommended up to 40s but only covered up to 26yr old, and that recommendation upgrade happened relatively recently. Which means there's a whole generation of men who are told they should get the vaccine, who would have had covered access to the vaccine in the past, but are now expected to go out of pocket.

      • tecleandor 1 hour ago
        Yep, I paid for mine. male/43/Spain. Almost €400. Two shots of the nonavalent vaccine, ~€190 each.

        For younger people it's three shots (second after two months, third after 6 months of the first one), now for older (over 30s or 40s, I can't remember exactly) it's recommended to get two shots (second after six months).

    • spiderfarmer 2 hours ago
      [dead]
    • blell 2 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • port3000 2 hours ago
        That's not what they are saying. Read it again.
        • blell 1 hour ago
          That’s exactly what they are saying. Read the last part.
    • nephihaha 2 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • tokioyoyo 1 hour ago
        If people stopped driving, we would have zero car crashes.
        • nephihaha 1 hour ago
          [flagged]
          • resoluteteeth 34 minutes ago
            A better comparison would be saying that we shouldn't have seat belts because people should be driving more carefully in the first place.
      • matthewmacleod 1 hour ago
        This adds nothing. It has been repeatedly shown that stupid abstinence-driven approaches to public health do not work. It’s equivalent to saying “maybe the obesity crisis would be solved if we all just ate less”.

        Moral crusades have zero place in public health and are actively harmful.

        • nephihaha 1 hour ago
          It's not a "moral crusade". If people don't sleep around this problem is going to diminish. Instead we have mass media telling people they need to hump everything that moves.

          Disease transmission becomes prevalent if people keep doing the things which spread it. This is a case in point. It's a medical issue. We have unprecedented levels of chlamydia in the west now because this lifestyle is so prevalent. This shot will prevent HPV but not all the other things you can catch.

          • Krssst 5 minutes ago
            > Disease transmission becomes prevalent if people keep doing the things which spread it

            The solution to covid/flu is wearing well-fitting masks and vaccines rather than never getting out.

            The solution to STIs is good protection with vaccines, condoms and tests.

            Religion can stay out of that.

          • matthewmacleod 12 minutes ago
            Yeah that’s a moral crusade. It’s a public health issue; you deal with it through public health measures like education, vaccination, and treatment. You don’t make it go away by wagging your finger at it.
        • bluGill 1 hour ago
          This isn't an abstinence driven approach it is a marry 'young' and then only that one partener for life.
          • matthewmacleod 11 minutes ago
            That just seems like abstinence with extra steps.
          • ulfw 1 hour ago
            What a truly sad life
            • nephihaha 55 minutes ago
              Not as sad as catching something which will damage you physically, sterilise them or even kill them.

              People don't want to hear this obviously. But it is a fact STI transmission has skyrocketed since the so called sexual revolution of the late sixties. Within fifteen years, we has an AIDS epidemic.

              • CalRobert 17 minutes ago
                Gen z are depressed, lonely, and less sexually active then their predecessors, so you may see your desired change come to pass.
            • nxm 1 hour ago
              And yet countless couples followed this path in life and are happy
              • isbvhodnvemrwvn 41 minutes ago
                Same goes for people who did not.
              • CalRobert 1 hour ago
                Many miserable people married young and are trapped until they die.
              • tpm 1 hour ago
                And countless couples followed this path in life and are not happy at all, and countless individuals can't for a variety of reasons follow this path. But public health advice should also be available to them.
                • nephihaha 1 hour ago
                  Psychology is a whole other matter, but if you're talking about sleeping around like Bonnie Blue then it is a form of Russian roulette and is likely to result in physical health trouble. Especially if people are having unprotected sex.

                  HPV spreads through oral sex as well by the way.

                  • tpm 1 hour ago
                    I am not talking about 'sleeping around' at all. Just by the look at the divorce rates around the world it is very clear that 'marry young and then never change partners' is an advice divorced from reality.
                    • nephihaha 50 minutes ago
                      Divorce is horrible for sure but that is mainly down to interpersonal relationships.

                      It is a simple fact that unprotected sex with large numbers of people is very risky. We should have learnt that lesson in the eighties.

                      • wpietri 28 minutes ago
                        If there's somebody out there advocating for "unprotected sex with large numbers of people", you should go post at them, because I don't see that here.

                        The biggest barrier to disease transmission reduction, at least here in the US, is uncritical abstinence promoters like yourself. It works, at best, for a small fraction of the population, and leaves the rest woefully unprepared for the biological realities. The best solution to STDs is education. Which, yes, should emphasize that not having sex is an option, but cannot stop there.

  • m00dy 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • zerofor_conduct 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
    • aniviacat 1 hour ago
      > Despite this being clearly shown within the HPV vaccine trials, since testing before vaccination would reduce vaccine sales, it was never recommended within the prescribing guidelines (some groups even said to not test before receiving the vaccine).

      Citation needed. In Germany, the HPV vaccine is recommended only to below 14 year olds, so as to reduce precisely that risk.

      https://www.rki.de/SharedDocs/FAQs/DE/Impfen/HPV/FAQ-Liste_H...

  • wewewedxfgdf 46 minutes ago
    Do the conspiracy theorists believe it or not?
  • albatross79 24 minutes ago
    Don't have promiscuous sex, or sex with promiscuous people. Prevention is better than the cure, and it improves your life in many other ways as well.
    • jmpman 9 minutes ago
      You sound like my fellow citizens who have decided to use their theocratic power to push this view across my city and school. It impacts my children and their future mates. Sure, there’s an ideal world in which every person finds their ideal partner on the first time, falls madly in love and remains forever faithful. I don’t live in a Disney fantasy world, and would prefer public health policies are based on pragmatic principles.
    • CalRobert 20 minutes ago
      Celibacy isn’t great either.

      Also I’d really prefer my daughters not get cancer no matter their sex lives.