HPV vaccine for men?

CHICAGO – While politicians argue over whether to make preteen girls get vaccinated against HPV, medical experts already have moved on to the next topic: giving the vaccine to boys as well.

HPV, or human papillomavirus, causes virtually all cases of cervical cancer. So a new vaccine that prevents infection with four common strains of the virus has been hailed as a big step toward eliminating a potentially lethal cancer that affects nearly 10,000 Americans a year.

Of course, men can’t get cervical cancer, but millions of them get HPV, which they can pass to their partners.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease, infecting an estimated 20 million Americans. Experts say about 50 percent of all U.S. adults have the virus, although most never know it. Currently, sexually active people have no way to protect themselves from HPV if their partner is infected.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine, Gardasil, last June. A few weeks later the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all girls be inoculated at ages 11 or 12 or before they become sexually active.

Now legislatures in at least 18 states are considering whether to require the vaccine for school attendance, like inoculations against polio and measles.

Public-health experts say making HPV shots mandatory is a good way to achieve broad coverage, or “herd immunity.” But an even better way to do that would be to make Gardasil an equal-opportunity vaccine.

“Men serve as a source of transmission for the virus,” said Dr. Yvonne Collins, assistant professor in gynecologic oncology at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago.

HPV can cause diseases that affect men, too, she said, including other cancers of the genital area and of the mouth and throat.

“We have an opportunity to clear a large burden of cancer with this vaccine,” Collins said.

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant that developed Gardasil, tested it in boys and found it safe and effective at producing immunity to the virus. That was enough to persuade regulatory authorities in Australia and the European Union to approve the vaccine for both sexes.

But the company does not yet have data proving the vaccine prevents disease in men as it does in women.

“Those studies are ongoing,” said Dr. Rick Haupt, Merck’s executive director of medical affairs. “We hope to have that data in 2008.”