Gardasil, the notorious vaccination that protects women against cervical cancer, was on the market mere months before I lined up at Syracuse University Health Services to get my series of shots. My own gynecologist, who recommended I get the vaccine, didn’t even have Gardasil in his office when I was ready to head back to campus.

I figured my doctor says it’s OK, so it must be. And now, the more I read about how it’s too new to know of any lasting effects, I get nervous and hope I made the right decision.

Gardasil protects against the strands of human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause cervical cancer in women. HPV also causes genital warts in males and females, and in some cases it has been linked to penile and anal cancer.

But while I continue to wonder about my decision, a new controversy is on the table. While the drug was approved in June 2006 for girls and women ages 9-26, the makers of Gardasil are now seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give the vaccine to guys. The vaccine is already approved for men in Australia, Mexico and the European Union.

Critics argue that we don’t know the long-term effects of the vaccine and the cost of giving the drug to boys might not be worth it. The argument against marketing Gardasil to young girls – it’s recommended that girls as young as 9 be vaccinated – is that it would promote promiscuous behavior.

Like other drugs and vaccines, there might be health risks for both men and women, but the real issue isn’t cost concerns or whether Gardasil promotes promiscuity; it’s preventing the spread of HPV, the most common sexually transmitted disease.

‘By vaccinating men as well as women, you reduce the amount of virus that is out there that can be transmitted back and forth,’ said Richard Haupt of Merck & Co., the company that manufactures Gardasil, in a Washington Post article. ‘Hopefully there will be a benefit not only to men themselves, but to their partners and future partners.’

Gardasil should have been made available for men and women from the beginning in order to avoid the women-only stigma it carries. Now that the vaccine might be approved for men, there’s confusion and disagreement about if it’s a ‘man’s’ drug.

‘It would have been easier to get across the idea that this is a vaccine to prevent transmission of HPV,’ said Evelyn Hurvitz, a pediatrician in Tonawanda, N.Y., in a New York Times article in February 2008.

But some still do not see the point of the drug.

Scott Collison, a sophomore physics major, said he wouldn’t get vaccinated because he’s not promiscuous. He also doesn’t advocate that guys with multiple partners to get Gardasil.

‘I feel that our society is over-vaccinating,’ he said. ‘There isn’t really a huge need for being immune to HPV, since genital warts and the cancers (it protects) affect a really small portion of the population.’

Often men have no symptoms and can spread cancer-causing HPV to women through unprotected sex. While warts may be treatable, like herpes, they’re not curable.

If Gardasil is approved for men, they should take advantage of protecting themselves and their partners. Don’t think of it as ‘the cervical cancer vaccine,’ think of it as another way to protect yourself and your partners against STDs.

Heather Mayer is a senior newspaper journalism major with Spanish and nutrition minors. She is the health columnist. Stay tuned for her last column in two weeks. She can be reached at [email protected]

Published on April 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm