U.S. vaccine advisers voted just this week to recommend that boys should be routinely vaccinated with the Gardasil vaccine to protect them from human papillomavirus or HPV infections, which cause genital warts and oral, penile and anal cancers in boys and men, and cervical cancers in women.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voted unanimously to recommend the vaccine for 11 to 12-year-old boys. Currently, the CDC recommends HPV vaccinations for girls and women between the ages of 11 and 26.
Jared Johnson, MD, with Via Christi Medical Associates on West Maple, agrees with the recommendations.
“I can think of few advances in medicine more exciting than a vaccine that protects against cancer. Though we’ve been vaccinating women for the last few years, adding men to the vaccinated population could potentially rid us of the HPV virus, which an estimated half of all adults have been exposed to,” Johnson said.
