The HPV vaccination is a strong foundation to set your health upon | Opinion
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have far-reaching impacts beyond the spread of the coronavirus itself, upending the daily lives of individuals and families across the globe.
Through rigorous research and development, we have approved vaccines demonstrated to be safe and effective at preventing hospitalization and death. While we celebrate these true miracles of science, it’s important to also reflect on other disease-preventing medical breakthroughs that help make a healthy, long life a reality for everyone.
One of those breakthroughs is the first and only vaccination that prevents multiple types of cancer. Following extensive clinical trials, the HPV vaccine was approved in 2006 and recommended for routine use in the United States, and since, has become a powerful public health tool for cancer prevention. Recently published studies have shown on-time HPV vaccination prevents cancer in adulthood.
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Despite widespread availability and the power of HPV vaccination to prevent several types of cancer, HPV vaccination coverage in the United States has been slow and lower than the national Healthy People 2030 goal of 80%. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 80 million Americans – one out of every four people – are infected with the virus.
As director of the HPV Cancer Prevention Program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital work with a team to prevent HPV cancers, HPV can cause six dangerous types of cancer (including cervical, vaginal, anal, penile, oral and throat cancer) in everyone – both women and men – and results in more than 36,000 cases of cancer each year plus hundreds of thousands of pre-cancers.
HPV vaccination – which is effective at preventing more than 90% of these types of cancers – is available and recommended for every person between the ages of 9 and 26, with ages 9 to 12 being the ideal age for both boys and girls to be vaccinated.
It is crucial to not only educate the general public about the dangers of HPV cancers, and, most importantly, empower responsible decision-making and action based on the longstanding and effective protection afforded by HPV vaccination.
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It’s in this same spirit that the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital HPV Cancer Prevention Program is launching a national campaign dedicated to educating about the benefits of HPV cancer prevention and generating urgency for on-time HPV vaccination for adolescents aged 9 to 12. The “Path to a Bright Future” public awareness campaign will kick off in the southeastern United States, where HPV vaccination rates remain well below national averages.
The campaign will take a coordinated and sustained approach that leverages the latest in public health findings to share the dangers of HPV pre-cancers and cancers, in addition to the benefits of vaccination in preventing cancer— with the goal of elevating these efforts to a nationally-focused campaign. It’s our hope that these collective actions will help increase the current national HPV vaccination average of 59% closer to the Healthy People 2030 goal.
Together with our campaign partners, we aim to increase awareness of the benefits of HPV vaccination and provide tangible resources for the use of best practices across community and healthcare settings to better meet people where they are. We’re also committed to raising awareness of policies that support HPV vaccination efforts broadly. Combined, we hope these actions will spotlight that HPV vaccination is cancer prevention.
The past several years have highlighted great advances made possible through scientific research and development.
As we recognized International HPV Awareness Day on March 4, we recommit ourselves to a world free of HPV cancers, celebrate the progress we’ve made over the years, and move forward with the critical work that remains.
Heather Brandt, Ph.D., is director of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital HPV Cancer Prevention Program, launched in March 2021 with a $12 million investment to focus on the prevention of HPV-related cancers around the world.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Receiving HPV vaccination is a great foundation to set your health on
