Though the vaccine is administered to less than 50 percent of girls, its utilization has helped to reduce HPV's prevalence by close to two-thirds.
The findings published in Pediatrics examined HPV immunization and infection rates in girls and women. The study examined HPV's prevalence in the pre-vaccine years of 2003 to 2006 and compared it with pervasiveness in the same age groups between 2009 and 2012. Immunization resulted in a 64 percent decrease of the HPV infection rates in females between the ages of 14 and 19. There was a 34 percent decrease among women ages 20 to 24.
In a New York Times article, Debbie Saslow, PhD, of the American Cancer Society said, "The vaccine is more effective than we thought." According to the study, the immunized teenagers are not spreading the virus upon becoming sexually active, so the protection of the vaccine has extended to the unvaccinated.
While this study and others continue to bolster the medical efficacy of the HPV vaccine, in the U.S. it is largely discretionary. Some studies have shown that many physicians avoid the discussion of the vaccine with patients and parents because of its implicit implications regarding sexual activity.
Many physicians are pressing for primary care providers to strongly recommend the vaccine. In an attempt to reframe the conversation around the vaccine, many cancer centers have publicly endorsed the vaccine as safe. Other physicians have suggesting steering the conversation away from sexual activity. In the New York Times, Joseph A. Bocchini Jr, MD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, said, "The infection is sexually transmitted, but that doesn't need to be part of the conversation...If a parent is concerned, physicians should be prepared to talk about it, but we don't really discuss how people become infected with every vaccine-preventable disease."
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