HPV vaccine is used to stop the virus that can cause cancer. The HPV vaccine has been on the market since , but is not as widely used as other recommended vaccines, according to the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
The vaccine, given in three doses, is recommended for both boys and girls between the ages of 11 and In spite of its success, just 57 percent of female teens received at least one dose and 38 percent of male teens had received all three doses in , according to the CDC.
Anupam Jena, lead author of the study and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital , said one likely cause for the low use of vaccine is that many parents and physicians are apprehensive about the possibility that the vaccine could lead to an increase in unsafe sex among teens and young adults. In the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Jena and his colleagues combed an insurance database to figure out whether people who had the vaccine had higher rates of sexually transmitted infections than those who did not get the vaccine.
The researchers looked at the medical history between and of 21, girls between the ages of 12 to 18, who had been given the vaccine, and compared them with , women who did not have the vaccine. The study found that the vaccinated women did not have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, suggested they did not have increased rates of unsafe sex. Jena said U. HPV vaccination rates pale in comparison to similar countries such as Australia , where around 80 to 90 percent of eligible young people are vaccinated.
(mh=G4IELdIFOhHpdDym)0.jpg "Sex guide in Jena")
He said he hoped the research would encourage parents and physicians to get their children vaccinated. Robert Bednarczyk, assistant professor in the Hubert Department of Global health at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, wrote a commentary on the study for the Journal of the American Medical Association and said physicians have not recommended the vaccine as much as other recommended vaccines given to teens such as shots for meningitis.
