Should HPV vaccination also be offered to boys?

[StoneTheFlamingCrows]

I wanted to get all your thoughts on this, as I have just spotted an article in the student BMJ in this that is actually really interesting.

The HPV vaccination is currently offered to girls at age 12/13. It protects against 4 strains of HPV, the 2 that can cause cancer, and 2 that cause warts which are harmless but obviously unpleasant.

One could argue that seeing as it is only girls that suffer the harmful effects I.e. Cervical cancer, then only they need to be immunised. Plus, immunising half of the sexual population will prevent it's spread anyway through "herd immunity" so boys are then far less likely to catch or carry the virus.

However, is this just it another way in which we are forcing the burden of reslonsibility for the nations sexual and reproductive health on to women?

Plus, men are not completely safe when it comes to the virus. Both men who have sex with men, or men who have sex with unvaccinated women, may be at risk of cancers if the anus/rectum and mouth/ throat caused by the virus, and of course are still at risk of unsightly and unpleasant warts.

So, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts from a feminist POV, as it did get me thinking.

I think it should be given to boys, absolutely.

I'm generally sympathetic to the argument that if you can get very nearly the same benefit for half the cost (in both money and risk) then that's what you should do, and the section of the population who will benefit should be the ones who bear the risks (cervical cancer is not a shared responsibility like pregnancy).

And politically it's difficult to sell an intervention that is mostly relevant to gay men. Even the most blinkered of parents normally accepts that their PFB DD will eventually have sex, if only because they want grandchildren, and yet we still get resistance to "sex jabs for children". Imagine the resistance to a jab just in case your DS grows up to have sex with men.

However it's still very much a live issue because of the growth of mouth and throat cancers, and as more evidence of safety builds up the risk reward balance may change.