Of course. That's true of any STD, or for that matter any communicable disease -- the more vectors, the greater the risk. The more times you throw the dice, the greater the chance they'll come up snake-eyes.
This is just anecdotal, but the folks I know with small children get a lot more colds in the average season than single folks or young couples without children. Kids are susceptible, they're in large groups in close contact, and they aren't always rigorous about covering their moths when they sneeze or cough or washing their hands. A classroom is a near-perfect incubator.
Then there's the 1918-19 flu epidemic, no doubt aided in its spread by World War I -- take a bunch of men from all over the world, carrying God knows what, gathered together in barracks, ships and trenches in close quarters, and a virus jumps from host to host like a frog hopping from one lily pad to another.
Of course, now we have folks from all over the world packed into shiny airliners with limited ventilation all day every day, so there are more disease vectors on an average unremarkable day than there were in the Great War.
Also I believe Gardasil is aimed more at the genital wart outbreak. It has become a problem but the cancer scare sounds more dramatic.
There would probably be an effort to produce a vaccine even if it were just about genital warts, which are problematic but not life-threatening. There are vaccines under development for gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis, which can usually be cured with antibiotics if detected; for genital herpes, which is permanent but not life-threatening; and for HIV, which is of course terminal.
The cancer angle makes the HPV vaccine more compelling that the others. The death numbers for uterine cancer are relatively low, but they are not the whole story -- add in the screenings, the follow-up screenings, hysterectomies, radiation, chemo and the lurking fear that the cancer will come back, and there is a whole lot of expense and suffering that could be avoided.
True but we're talking about a dice roll that need NOT be taken. Catching a cold at work isn't quite the same as taking a chance on contracting an STD for a few moments pleasure. Sex isn't a recreational sport. Unless you ask a liberal.
The death numbers for uterine cancer are relatively low, but they are not the whole story -- add in the screenings, the follow-up screenings, hysterectomies, radiation, chemo and the lurking fear that the cancer will come back, and there is a whole lot of expense and suffering that could be avoided.
I worked it out and it's 0.08208% of the population that contracts cervical cancer. That's not an epidemic worthy of mandating the vaccine for prepubescent kids. If a parent WANTS their child to have it, fine. Polio, whooping cough, measles..........they were epidemics. This is not.
Btw, I also read on a Gardasil thread a while ago that most women who die from cervical cancer usually don't get Pap smears. It was some study that was cited. If they don't get regular Paps, why would they bother with a vaccine?