Study: HPV vaccination does not increase risky sexual behavior by girls

  • Thread starter Thread starter JapaneseKappa
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JapaneseKappa

Guest
www.upi.com

Study: HPV vaccination does not increase risky sexual behavior by girls

Adolescent girls who received HPV vaccinations in a publicly-funded program at school didn't engage in increased sexual behaviors, according to a study in Canada.
www.upi.com www.upi.com
A study in Canada suggests that previous concerns the HPV vaccine would increase the risk for teenaged girls to engage in increased sexual behavior are unfounded.
Click to expand...
The actual study is here:

www.cmaj.ca

Population-level sexual behaviours in adolescent girls before and after introduction of the human papillomavirus vaccine (2003–2013)

BACKGROUND: The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is delivered widely through school-based immunization programs. Some groups have expressed concern that HPV vaccination programs will result in an increase in sexual risk-taking behaviours among adolescents. We aimed to evaluate population-level...
www.cmaj.ca www.cmaj.ca
 
It’s been alleged by opponents of the vaccine that somehow getting younger girls innoculated is some sort of permission to have sex.
 
Those that think it increases sexual activity have variations of the following logic.
By giving girls the HPV vaccine, it takes away one of the risks to pre-marital sex. By taking away that risk, young girls are more likely to be willing to try out sex prior to marriage as they are safe from getting HPV, whereas before it was a concern that is helpful in holding them back. It’s akin to if you gave every girl birth control for some medical reason as doing that would encourage more sex, much like the HPV vaccine does.
I don’t endorse the logic. I can understand the general idea and see what they’re saying, but it (as this study shows) is incorrect.
 
This just tells us that young girls aren’t really worried about HPV. Their risky sexual behavior isn’t changed by being protected against it. This isn’t surprising as HPV isn’t a serious and immediate problem. You see the same thing with male homosexuals now engaging in more risky sex since HIV doesn’t seem like an immediate death sentence.
 
mVitus said:
I don’t endorse the logic. I can understand the general idea and see what they’re saying, but it (as this study shows) is incorrect.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it somehow feels akin to saying that adding anti-lock brakes to cars will make people riskier drivers.
 
It is like that and it is a real problem. It is called moral hazard. When you make things safer people tend to act more recklessly.
 
Not according to this study. So, unless you have some actual statistics to back up your claim, I’m not buying it. Protecting women from cervical cancer outweighs any notions of “moral hazard”.
 
You’re not buying what, moral hazard? It is a well established concept. All this study shows is that girls don’t think HPV is a big deal. That isn’t surprising. The biggest danger, cancer, is not immediate. People often aren’t worried about what they perceive as long term risks.
 
The study says there is no evidence of increased promiscuity due to the vaccination. Your whole notion of “moral hazard” is bunk, and you know what, even if it were true, the fact that it reduces the incidents of cervical cancer at a statistically significant level means even if it were true, I could care less. People not dying of cancer seems far more important than certain peoples’ fears about human sexuality.
 
I’m surprised that they haven’t studied men who’ve gotten the HPV Vaccine…
 
I don’t know how it works now, but even into my teen years I didn’t think at all about the diseases I got vaccinations for. I just knew I got them because my parents wanted me to. Granted, Gardasil wasn’t around back then.

I definitely think the logic of moral hazards is sound, but especially if you’re getting the vaccine at a young age I don’t think it’s going to register in your mind the same way. It’s just getting another series of shots at the doctor’s.
 
exnihilo said:
Well, professionals would disagree, but you are entitled to your opinion.
Click to expand...
Actually, I am not sure that experts would disagree. While the moral hazard is an issue, economists also take into account people’s awareness of the hazard and any discounting they use in their decision making. I have not seen any analysis of the HPV vaccine, so I would want to see the data first.
 
exnihilo said:
It is called moral hazard. When you make things safer people tend to act more recklessly.
Click to expand...
It’s removing a risk, but I dont think that specific risk creates much of a perception of something being safer. Prior to there being a vaccine for HPV I dont think it was much talked about.

This would require further investigation, but if asked about concerns in engaging in sex I think other concerns or diseases would rank higher and HPV would not have made the list. Compared to other diseases that could be caught HPV is a fairly recent enterance to the discussion.

Now if we were talking about things that prevent pregnancy leading to higher disease rates then I could see that, as people will often see pregnancy as a high risk and appear to assess diseases as lower risk.
 
More precisely, that’s thats one of those things non-religious people like to accuse religious people of thinking.

After awhile all the silly claims become background noise.
Bzzzz…
 
I suppose it’s in keeping with the trend of teenagers having less sex than the generations before them.

But yes, I don’t know why people thought it would have increased risky sexual behaviour anyway.
 
Lou2U said:
But yes, I don’t know why people thought it would have increased risky sexual behaviour anyway.
Click to expand...
I will say, that I saw an ad for the new HIV drug that lowers risk of transmission, and that seemed to be its exact message: “now you don’t have to bother being careful!” Yikes.
 
pensmama87 said:
40.png
Lou2U:
But yes, I don’t know why people thought it would have increased risky sexual behaviour anyway.
Click to expand...
I will say, that I saw an ad for the new HIV drug that lowers risk of transmission, and that seemed to be its exact message: “now you don’t have to bother being careful!” Yikes.
Click to expand...
The opposite message would be “we are going to discourage this use of this drug because we want the fear and actual risk of infection to be utilized to prevent that behavior.” To that I also say, “Yikes!”
 
pensmama87 said:
I will say, that I saw an ad for the new HIV drug that lowers risk of transmission, and that seemed to be its exact message: “now you don’t have to bother being careful!” Yikes.
Click to expand...
I might have seen the same ad. They have been running this ‘prep’ ad. It is all about preparing for risky sex acts. The alternative of not engaging in the risky sex acts isn’t popular.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top