Comment by 0xbadcafebee
1 month ago
For those men wondering whether they should get vaccinated:
- HPV causes genital warts, HPV is permanent, doctors won't test you for HPV unless you demand it, and the tests aren't reliable, which is why they literally won't diagnose you unless you already have genital warts.
- Once you are confirmed HPV positive (again, you won't be confirmed without getting genital warts), you need to inform your partners, as it causes cancer in both men and women (but mostly women).
You are giving some honestly really bad and dangerous info.
The HPV strains that cause cancer and the ones that cause genital warts are different. The strains that cause cancer do not cause warts.
So you can very much have HPV without genital warts.
And conversely, while having genital warts tells you you are infected with the low risk strains, it does not guarantee you that it is the only strain you are carrying.
Thus you cannot rely on the presence of genital warts to know if you are or are not infected with the high risk strains, they are completely uncorellated.
The cancer-causing strains cause no symptoms and can only be detected by getting tested for them.
You're putting words and assumptions in my mouth that I never said in my comment. My comment includes different facts about different strains, in one comment, which some people might misinterpret. Your reply is re-stating the facts in more detail, so that's fine, I am happy for anyone to clarify information. However, the assigning of bad faith and action to me just because you don't like the way I presented the facts, is pretty rude. If you want to get really specific, we should probably clarify to the readers these statements you made:
> The cancer-causing strains cause no symptoms and can only be detected by getting tested for them
Cancer-causing strains can still cause the following symptoms: persistent sore throat, lumps, pain when swallowing, earaches (one-sided), swollen lymph nodes in the neck (painless lump), painful/difficult urination or bowel movements, unusual lumps or sores, or unexplained weight loss, in addition to others I have not listed here. However, early cancers often do not present symptoms.
> and can only be detected by getting tested for them
There is no test that covers all strains. You would need to get penile brushing, urethral brushing, semen samples, and anal pap smear. So "getting tested" is not the only solution, and getting regular scans for cancer is the best detection method. Therefore there is more involved than you have indicated, making your own comment as ;really bad and dangerous' as mine.
Perhaps we should trust people to do their own research and ask their doctor, rather than only listen to randos on the internet?
Which words am I putting in your mouth?
> HPV causes genital warts
False. Not all do. And more importantly, the ones that cause cancer do not!
> Once you are confirmed HPV positive (again, you won't be confirmed without getting genital warts)
Again false. You can be tested without genital warts and be positive to a strand of HPV that simply does not cause wart. You might have had (or heard about) a bad experience with a health professional that refused to test without warts, but the presence or absence of warts has absolutely nothing to do with the strands that matter.
> you need to inform your partners, as it causes cancer in both men and women (but mostly women).
False again. Since you were specifically talking about the strands of HPV causing warts, then it does not cause cancer. You can still inform them if you care about no propagating warts, but the fact that you have wart-strand HPV does not make you more at risk of getting/causing cancer than someone with no symptoms whatsoever.
Your comment clearly says that someone with cancer-causing HPV will have warts, thus someone reading this might feel confident they are not carrying a cancer-causing strand since they do not have warts, which is dangerous because again, it is 100% false. It might also needlessly worry someone that recently noticed genital warts on themselves into thinking they might have gotten/propagated a dangerous disease, while the wart causing strand are in fact harmless and are just unpleasant aesthetically.
So tl;dr, you should get vaccinated if you can, and if you want to be sure you do not have a cancer causing strand, you need to get tested for it, that's the only way. Warts or no warts is completly unrelated.
> Perhaps we should trust people to do their own research and ask their doctor, rather than only listen to randos on the internet?
On that we agree!
You missed three very important caveats that complicate the story you’re trying to tell:
1) not every strain of HPV causes cancer (iirc, the bad ones are rare).
2) many people (in fact, most people) who are active in the world have been infected with at least one strain of HPV.
3) it’s common to have asymptomatic HPV infections. you probably have one now.
one more:
4) the vaccines likely have little effect on anything unless you were vaccinated as a child (and are a biological woman).
Overall, it’s a situation where you’re asking that sexual partners “disclose” something that the partner probably already has, if they bothered to be tested for it to begin with. Moreover, nobody does these tests (in men, at least), because there’s no point to doing them, other than creating anxiety.
I will leave the nuances of bioethics to other people, but it’s not as clear a situation as you’re making it out to be.
One final thing: these infections aren’t “permanent”. They generally clear naturally in a few years.
> 4) the vaccines likely have little effect on anything unless you were vaccinated as a child (and are a biological woman).
This guidance is changing. Vaccinating men protects women. Also just because you were infected with one strain, that doesn't mean you can't contract another, possibly oncogenic one. Get vaccinated, it protects against the most common cancer-causing strains. I did, why would I want to unknowingly give someone cancer?
>> 4) the vaccines likely have little effect on anything unless you were vaccinated as a child (and are a biological woman).
> This guidance is changing. Vaccinating men protects women.
Yeah, it was fucking like pulling teeth getting my HPV vaccine as an adult male. "It's for teenage girls" comments from multiple health care professionals.
I only took the first fucking dose in the regime, and none of my health care providers now offer low cost or covered options. I had to spend Covid money when I had it. I still need the rest of the regime.
Thank you thread for the reminder.
2 replies →
Does it not prevent cancer in the throat in men? Not sure why that would be women only.
The situation is pretty clear when you're a woman who got cancer from her boyfriend who knew he had HPV and didn't tell her, or didn't get vaccinated because he didn't feel like it. I think most people would want to avoid that situation. The genital warts thing is just embarrassing but another good-enough reason to get vaccinated early.
On Permanence: 10-20% of HPV infections either don't go away, or go dormant and recur throughout your lifetime. These strains are the ones likely to cause cancer. Low-risk ones cause genital warts that continue causing warts throughout your lifetime. High-risk ones may cause cancer.
The vaccine is available up until 45 years old. Worst case it does nothing, best case it prevents genital warts and cancer.
> The situation is pretty clear when you're a woman who got cancer from her boyfriend who knew he had HPV and didn't tell her
You can make up “just so” stories to justify anything.
The point is, the story you’re telling isn’t likely to occur if the woman is vaccinated.
The vaccine is incredibly effective in young women, and only borderline effective if administered in older men and women who have never been infected. Long-term efficacy in young men is less certain than for young women.
> Low-risk ones cause genital warts that continue causing warts throughout your lifetime.
Again, no. Most infections clear on their own. You are correct that rarely some infections are persistent or dormant, and that these sometimes lead to cancer. But these are the minority.
#4, anything that reduces cancer risk is a plus in my book, regardless to time and gender