"Hey doc. Any chance we could get a source for your outrageously high 80% infection rate stat? I'm no MD, but I do happen to be a statistician and would like the opportunity to examine the scientific validity of the unsourced HPV infection rate statistics that are being tossed out by people like you on this thread.
Specifically, where did they take that sample from? When did they take it? How was the diagnosis made? Was it representative of the general U.S. population? How many participated? What percentage of respondents were sexually active outside of wedlock? I look forward to your response."
I noticed you didn't get a response on this post. Too bad, I was interested in where this was going....Anybody can throw out numbers, very few can back them up with facts.
The 80% figure is claimed by Merck in its product marketting and repeated on a "Frequently Asked Questions" brochure by the Center for Disease Control. I tried to follow the sources stated in their literature and it eventually leads back to a study that seems to be the 80% figure's source.
It's from a 1986 study in a Scandanavian epidemiology journal taken from 1,000 22 year old women who visited a single gynecology clinic in the town of Kuopio, Finland in 1985. The author of the study found an active HPV infection rate of 7%. Not 70% but 7%. Using that 7% figure he then made a severely overinflated guesstimate that the lifetime HPV infection risk was 79%, which Merck subsequently rounded up to 80%. I posted some of the details and the article citations here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780480/posts?page=106#106