Human Papilloma Virus

I Thought Toads Gave Us Warts?

HPV, or Human Papilloma Virus, is a very common wart virus. If you have or have had a wart, you had HPV. On the other hand, HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. Most infections with HPV are harmless and the human body can take care of it without help, but there are some strains that have been closely connected to genital warts and cancer, mainly cervical cancer. While there is no cure for HPV, there are quite a few preventative measures that can be taken. For example, there are vaccines (highly encouraged for young girls), genital warts can be removed, and using condoms can help prevent getting HPV, as long as the virus is not all around the genital area.

Vaccines are Coming ‘Round the Mountain When They Come…

The most common vaccine being used today for HPV is Gardasil 9. This particular vaccine is a non-infectious recombinant vaccine made with purified virus-like particles. This vaccine has been very successful in protecting vaccinated individuals from acquiring the virus, but it only protects against nine strains, of which seven of those are cancerous. There are around 200 different strains of HPV. That ratio is a little startling…..Never Fear, Dr. Xia Ningshao is here! There is a new HPV vaccine on the horizon that potentially covers twenty HPV strains. Researchers at Xiamen University are conducting vaccine trials on monkeys and mice with this new development. According to the article, this new vaccine uses the anatomy of the HPV virus to its advantage. The virus has “loops” on its surface that the body and vaccines can mount a response against, but it is specific to those particular loops. This new serum contains a virus-like particle that contains triple loop groups of three different strains in one group. They are working on increasing that number to four loops per group, and five loop groups per virus-particle. Thus, the body is introduced to 20 or so strains of HPV at once and can prepare its troops in the event of an actual infection. To add to the impressive features of this vaccine, it is supposedly more accessible and will be cheaper than Gardasil 9 to the general public. Less expensive AND more protective? Who doesn’t love a two for one deal?

The Trials

As I mentioned above, the researchers working on the new vaccine are testing it on monkeys and mice. This alludes to the fact that in order to test the effectiveness of the vaccine, the monkeys and mice have to be infected with HPV. Is this moral? Who knows. The debate has been and will always be there. If the vaccine shows some kind of promise, it will advance to humans so either way people are brought into the equation. The human trials for the HPV Vaccine back in the earl 2000’s went to extensive lengths to make sure the right people were being tested and that the results were unbiased. According to the HPV Organization Website, the original Gardasil vaccine was tested on over 20,000 women and 4,000 men from various places all over the world. The practice of blindly assigning groups to getting the actual versus a placebo was used and the results proved Gardasil to be almost 100% effective in preventing abnormal cells in the cervix that are related to cervical cancer in women. The trials also proved Gardasil to be 90% effective in preventing HPV caused penile lesions and genital warts.

After looking through various sources, one of which was the U.S Governments Clinical Trial Website, I cannot find super specific details of this research. My question is, how did they test this vaccine without having to infect healthy people? If someone already has the disease, the vaccine isn’t really necessary, but it does not seem ethical to infect someone with HPV, whether they consent or not. Maybe more research is necessary on my part, but the vaccine is proven to be safe and highly effective which is all the really matters!

Dang this is a four-for-one sale. The HPV vaccine (including the new one being researched) is inexpensive, protects you from lots of HPV strains, is safe AND highly effective? It doesn’t get much better than that!