Between the 40’s and 70’s pregnant women with complications were given a synthetic estrogen. Turns out that hormone treatment did not make a difference in the outcome of the pregnancy. But the female offspring were then at risk for clear cell adenocarcinoma (cervical cancer), cancer of the vagina, and an increased risk for breast cancer. Sometimes doctors catch that connection, most often they don't because records for those treatments no longer exist and the patients are unaware of it.
Too many posters here assume cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease or that a history of cervical cancer is a heredity issue. Now you know that is not always true.
If I were the parent of a pre-teen I would not risk this vaccine for my daughters. Yearly pap tests once a female becomes sexually active is important and safer. Now they are advising pre-teen males also get this vaccine. I'd opt for giving this vaccine some history.
Governor Perry said he went about it the wrong way. Let's move on. The media would love for conservatives to be bogged down with this stuff.
Certain HPV types are classified as "high-risk" because they lead to abnormal cell changes and can cause genital cancers: cervical cancer as well as cancer of the vulva, anus, and penis. In fact, researchers say that virtually all cervical cancers -- more than 99% -- are caused by these high-risk HPV viruses.
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Persistent HPV infections are now recognized as the cause of essentially all cervical cancers, as well as most cases of anal cancer. In 2011, more than 12,000 women in the United States are expected to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 4,000 are expected to die from it (2). Cervical cancer is diagnosed in nearly half a million women each year worldwide, claiming a quarter of a million lives annually.
Although anal cancer is uncommon, more than 5,000 men and women in the United States are expected to be diagnosed with the disease in 2011, and 770 people are expected die from it.
Genital HPV infection also causes some cancers of the vulva, vagina, and penis. In addition, oral HPV infection causes some cancers of the oropharynx (the middle part of the throat, including the soft palate, the base of the tongue, and the tonsils).
It has been estimated that HPV infection accounts for approximately 5 percent of all cancers worldwide.
From the National Cancer Institute: