That’s right, it’s inconsequential because HPV almost never turns into cancer.
But it’s not right that 80% have it “sometime in their lives”. HPV is a virus, oh I guess you could say sort of like Herpes, it’s forever. Once you contract it, it is always in your system. You don’t “catch it” and recover from it.
Really? The National Cervical Cancer Coalition reports that there are 473,000 cases of cervical cancer reported worldwide every year. Of those, 253,500 result in death. The National Cancer Institute reports that just 2 strains of HPV (both of which are prevented by Gardasil) are responsible for over 70% of all cases of cervical cancer. They also report that HPV is responsible for 5% of ALL cancers worldwide.
So if we take that 70% figure, then HPV is responsible for 331,000 cases of cervical cancer each year worldwide, and almost 178,000 deaths from cervical cancer. And that does not include incidents of penile cancer, throat cancer, anal cancer, etc.
That does not seem inconsequential to me.
The majority of HPV infections clear within one-to-two years, although infections caused by oncogenic HPV can persist and lead to cervical cancer. ...www.nocervicalcancer.org/hpv_cc_faqs.html* For every one million women who are infected with oncogenic HPV:
- ~= 100,000 will develop precancerous cervical cell changes
- ~= 8,000 will develop early cancer confined to the outer layers of the cervical cells
- ~= 1,600 will develop invasive cervical cancer
Here's another source, but you have to "do the math" ...
At any one time, an estimated 20 million people in the United States have genital HPV infections that can be transmitted to others, and every year, about 5.5 million people become infected.www.nccc-online.org/patient_info/hpv_test/cdc_issues.htmlAs expected, prevalence of HPV-16 among study participants increased with the number of lifetime sex partners. Seven percent of people with one lifetime sex partner had the infection compared to 20.1 percent of people with 50 or more lifetime sex partners.
Overall, thirteen percent of the study population carried HPV-16 antibodies. However, the figure does not represent all people in the study with the infection because not all people who have been infected develop detectable antibodies.
And from the CDC ...
Most people with HPV do not develop symptoms or health problems from it. In 90% of cases, the body's immune system clears HPV naturally within two years. ...www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htmApproximately 20 million Americans are currently infected with HPV. Another 6 million people become newly infected each year. HPV is so common that at least 50% of sexually active men and women get it at some point in their lives.