Melbourne School of Public Health in Australia recently studied HPV and young gay men: they recruited 200 adolescent males, ages 16 to 20, who were attracted to other males. The participants were never vaccinated against HPV and had few sexual encounters. At four points over one year, the researchers collected three swabs from each participant's penis, mouth and anal canal to test for HPV. Over that period, they found 48 definite anal HPV infections, 10 penile infections and no mouth infections. The researchers say the infection rates would mean that among 100 gay and bisexual males in that age range, there would be 57 new anal infections every year. Linking their data to those of another study, the researchers estimated there is a 50% chance of HPV passing from a man's penis to the anal canal of another. The risk of HPV going from anal canal to penis was lower, however. Two vaccines against HPV are offered in the U.S. Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKline, is approved for females. Gardasil, which is produced by Merck, is approved for both males and females. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children receive the HPV vaccine between ages 11 and 12. The agency also recommends the vaccine through age 26 for women and for men who have sex with men. For men who have sex with women, the vaccine is recommended through age 21 years. More than 30 to 40 types of HPV are typically transmitted through sexual contact and infect the anogenital region. Some sexually transmitted HPV types may cause genital warts. Persistent infection with “high-risk” HPV types progress to precancerous lesions and invasive cancer. In other words, now, with the advent of Truvada,* pharmaceuticals are the only barrier between gay men and extinction.
* See earlier blog: