HPV16 VACCINE IN CONSUMER REPORTS

image via oncolink.org

The HPV16 vaccine article in Consumer Reports pushes hot buttons across the board. It’s easy to understand why.

I’m a father of two, but it’s more than that. Too many parents are overwhelmed with the joy of their own reproductive skills and the bundle of joy as a result. I know I was.

Our kids are a legacy, and start out as a blank slate. Whether nature or nurture, we imprint the best of who we are on them. That’s the good part. We also imprint the worst. That’s the part we tend to ignore.

First off, I did read the article. Second, I’ve read the comments. Now you know I’m a reader, not a knee jerk reactor. Third, I started and finished HPV16 neck cancer treatment this year. How did it go?

Pretty awful. Talk to anyone who took the treatment without opioids, anti-anxiety, or nausea meds. Why didn’t I hit the meds? Cancer treatment was bad enough, I didn’t need an addiction on top of that. What’s this got to do with vaccination? I can’t really speak to cervical cancer, but I’ve got a pretty good idea how P16 neck cancer develops.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, the vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing infections from several serious HPV strains when given in the right doses at the right time.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that young adolescents (ages 11 to 14) receive two doses of the HPV vaccine, six months apart. Those who begin the series later, between 15 and 26, will need three doses.

The treatment might be the most harsh in the book because it affects breathing, eating, drinking, sneezing, coughing, all the stuff your neck does. With any luck you don’t fall into a death spiral of depression. Since I did, and it seemed like a normal response to the hammer blows of chemo and radiation to my neck, I speak up at times like these.

So save the fake news talk, the medical conspiracy, profiteering; I can tell you from the other side this isn’t something you want to live through, or watch someone live through. The treatment is a killer experience that leaves you feeling like death warmed over.

One factor may be the way doctors talk with parents and their children about the vaccine, says Pamela Phillips, M.D., chief of pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Group in Los Angeles. In 2015, her practice had one of the highest HPV vaccination rates in the state, with 47 percent of males and 37 percent of females getting all three doses by age 13.

“The language one uses to present a vaccine and the confidence with which a doctor talks about it makes a big difference,” Philips says.

Children get their time, deserve their time. What parent wants to be reminded of their kid’s future sex life, or their own for that matter. I can tell you from this side, it gets murky explaining a P16 cancer diagnosis to a wife of thirty years. Imagine the questions asked, and not asked.

I’m not supporting or denying any vaccination, let alone the HPV16 vaccine, just telling my little story. I’m no he-man tough guy, but I get mistaken for one on this. Instead I got tagged by HPV16 neck cancer. You don’t want to be ‘It’ in this game.