Comment by 0xbadcafebee
5 hours ago
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.