I have always been pro-vaccination and have taken every vaccine necessary for my entire life... until covid, that entire situation soured me on "professional opinion." I'm not here to discuss whether you think that vaccine was good or bad - just stating my personal opinion. I'm not anti vaxx, just more careful/thoughtful about what gets injected into me - I generally support the HPV vaccine as it clearly has benefits despite the possible negatives

I think it’s interesting that the vaccinations people object to are the ones that are saving lives today. So, people are fine with their kid getting the polio vaccine, even though the chances your kid will get polio today are pretty much nil, but vaccines against cancer or Hep B, both diseases that kill people every day in the US, are scary. It just doesn’t make sense.

I am somewhat skeptical of the medical establishments, mostly because it is so focused on profits rather than cures which distorts the whole field.

However, both of my teens received this vaccine when they were 11 or 12. Boy and girl. No regrets.

Anonymous wrote:The science is clear that she should get it. If your reading didn’t make that clear I would be concerned about the quality of your sources.

This. What are you reading, OP?

It's like the one vaccine for cancer. Of course you get it. My 10 year old has had first dose already.

MD here. My male patients in their 50's and 60's with head and neck cancer have nearly a 100% positive HPV origin to their disease. It's crazy. Please don't forgo this vaccine, a particularly important message for parents of sons. If you haven't seen a guy with his mandible removed, google it. You'll be convinced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a family member who was a medical personnel got a HPV cancer in their sinus from inhaling the virus treating warts in patients (they used to burn them off and the PPE was insufficient). They survived but the surgery to remove it was terrible. It's very rare but it happens.

Absolutely no question in my mind, get the vaccine.

This is wild. Glad he survived

You can read more about them here:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/inverted-papilloma

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2025/06/hpv-drives-tumor-development-in-rare-nasal-cancers

HPV can cause all sorts of weird cancers. Get the vaccine.

Anonymous wrote:I had a family member who was a medical personnel got a HPV cancer in their sinus from inhaling the virus treating warts in patients (they used to burn them off and the PPE was insufficient). They survived but the surgery to remove it was terrible. It's very rare but it happens.

Absolutely no question in my mind, get the vaccine.

This is wild. Glad he survived

I had a family member who was a medical personnel got a HPV cancer in their sinus from inhaling the virus treating warts in patients (they used to burn them off and the PPE was insufficient). They survived but the surgery to remove it was terrible. It's very rare but it happens.

Absolutely no question in my mind, get the vaccine.

We had a family friend die of HPV related cancer. Interestingly, her DH had a previous wife die of the same cancer. Had the vaccine been available back then, he would have never transmitted it to his two wives.

Both my sons have been vaccinated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 52 year old male cousin is currently battling a very aggressive cancer in his neck that his drs said was caused by HPV in his throat that metastasized. The HPV came from him performing unprotected oral sex, perhaps decades before. To say he and his wife are in shock would be an understatement. He’s getting great care at MD Anderson and we are praying that he beats it. Get the vaccine unless your dr advises against it!!

I just lost a loved one to the same. This is not a rare cancer, and it's not just to protect women. Until this happened, I had no idea men could even get cancer related to HPV, much less die from it. People need to know so they can protect their children.

Get it.

Woman gets cancer from hpv transmitted from a manicure.

Get the vaccines.

https://people.com/health/california-woman-contracts-hpv-related-nail-cancer-following-visit-to-salon/

Quoting her UCLA doctor: “Interestingly, almost every single skin cancer I've dealt with that involved fingers or nails … have been associated with high-risk HPV…That is alarming — and it's in younger patients."

My pediatrician talked to me about it and, what swayed it for me, vaccinated her own kids. So that was good enough for me. The benefits are huge. And we have seen no side effects.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD and DS both got it. No concerning side effects. My son often has a mid fever after vaccinations.

I’ve honestly have never heard of any real downside. But my younger kid is about 5 years out. Anti-vaxxers are against it. People who just don’t want to deal with the idea their kids may one day be sexually active often push it off because they think their kids are way too young. Which is the point of getting it at 11-12.

What’s your concern, exactly? My default position is vaccinate unless their is a good reason not to. And a 100 degree fever for a day and my not liking the fact my kid could one day get an std aren’t good reasons to protect my kid from cancer.

All 3 of my kids received it.
Even if they don't become voluntarily sexually active for years they could always (God forbid) be assaulted in the intervening years.
Yes, the odds of this are exceedingly slim but why not protect them from HPV?
There just isn't any downside to the vaccine in my mind.

Of course there is a downside to anything that modern medicine comes up with. To claim otherwise is intellectually sloppy. There are trade offs, it is just that most of the time the upsides more than make up for the downsides.
All vaccines can and do have devastating side effects in a small number of cases. This vaccine a bit more than others, but it is still worth getting it.

My sister had to take a lot of Tylenol in pregnancy and was repeatedly and confidently told by her OB that it is absolutely safe. Her son has autism and ADHD, both of which were linked to prenatal Tylenol by recent studies.
A friend had to have antibiotics and anesthesia in her first trimester and her aon was born deaf, very likely due to that exposure.
Please don’t for a second believe that medications, interventions and vaccines come with zero downsides. By the way, I do believe that in both my sister’s and my friend’s pregnancies the medications were warranted. I am just cautioning against blind trust that it all comes at no cost.

+1 My two DDs have both had it, but I certainly weighed the risks first. There were issues with the first iteration and allegations the dosage was so high it caused autoimmune disease and premature ovary failure. Merck was also motivated to get the vaccine on the market quickly because they had just had to discontinue pain killer Vioxx after only 5 years since it caused heart attacks and strokes. This is a business, not a nonprofit. We all know about HPV because of their marketing campaign, not from our doctor.

So I reviewed information about the lawsuit, read up on studies for the fertility issues of women who got it as teens, and reviewed the claims submitted to the vaccine court. Vaccines come with real risks, not just a fever for a day. The benefits are so high the government is okay with that trade off, that's why we have a government funded vaccine court, but don't for a second think it's without real risks.

For my family, the risks were ultimately outweighed by the benefits and my DDs are vaccinated. I'm posting just because I'm always surprised in these discussions that people don't even seem to understand how the vaccine business is run, how the government protects the drug manufacturers with the vaccine court, or the many drugs and vaccines that were ultimately pulled from the market, like the rotavirus that cause bowel perforation in infants. That doesn't make me an antivaxxer, it makes me an educated consumer.