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HPV vaccine for boys 'will prevent thousands of cancers'
[UK] health officials say the HPV vaccine for 12 to 13-year-old boys, starting after the summer, will prevent 29,000 cancers in UK men in the next 40 years. The boys will be eligible from the start of the new school year, 11 years after girls were first vaccinated.
The jab protects against human papilloma virus, which causes many oral, throat and anal cancers.
[...] Why are boys now getting the jab? Because the programme to vaccinate teenage girls, and reduce cervical cancers, has proved very successful.
There has been a reduction in HPV infections, genital warts and pre-cancerous growths in teenage girls and young women since the vaccine was introduced. Other groups, like teenage boys, have seen benefits too because the virus is not being passed on to them. To protect boys even more, and reduce cancers of the anus, penis and head and neck in the future, health experts say they should be offered the HPV vaccine too.
Also at The Guardian and The Telegraph.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:31PM
I seem to recall seeing somewhere that when a new drug hits the market around 90% of adverse side effects are identified within 5 years of that drug going on the market; I'm not going to try to (re)locate that bit of info, but if anyone who has better and/or refuting info wants to chime in, please do. If there are any adverse effects, it would seem that 13 years is more than adequate to identify the most serious/obvious of those adverse side effects. I will also note that the story indicates that vaccinating girls has been a resounding success; the only missing part appears to be vaccinating the boys.