HPV Cancer Resources

Helpful Information for Parents, Patients, Partners, and Providers

Helpful Information for Parents, Patients, Partners, and Providers

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Before diving in to the FAQ, let’s start out with a basic look at the risks and rewards of vaccines. Check out this YouTube video, which provides a nice overview of the relative risks of vaccines. They’re not perfect, but we need to weigh them against the sickness and deaths associated with infectious diseases, such as measles or Covid-19.


Combatting Anti-Vaccine Misinformation

Anti-vaccine information is rampant online, especially as it regards the HPV vaccine. In a recent article examining Twitter for misinformation regarding the HPV vaccine, researchers found that about 25% of the Tweets contained misinformation.
Kornides, M.L. et al. Exploring content of misinformation about HPV vaccine on Twitter. J Behav Med https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-022-00342-1 FREE Download

The table below from this paper illustrates the various categories that this mis-information takes:

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From this same paper, this graphic shows the relative abundance of false claims for the HPV vaccine. NOS refers to Not Otherwise Specified.
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HPV Infection and Cancer References in Pop Culture

Law and Order.
In Season 20, Episode 20, Lt. Anita van Buren finds out she has stage 2 cervical cancer caused by HPV. She angrily blames her ex-husband, who she thinks gave it to her five years earlier. No mention is made of the fact that he might not have known that he had HPV when he infected her, or that she actually could have been infected by someone else at a much younger age.

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