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U of M Study: Sexual Behavior No Guide for HPV Vaccine
Steve Carmody (sgcarmod@umich.edu)
ANN ARBOR
(2008-07-07)
A new University of Michigan study finds no reason for parents to wait to have their daughters vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer.
The vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus or HPV must be administered before a teenage girl becomes sexually active to be fully effective.
Dr. Amanda Dempsey says her research shows equal infection rates among women who were either very sexually active or only minimally sexually active as teenagers.
She says that shows that parents shouldn't tie their daughter's chances of getting HPV to the girl's sexual behavior.
"HPV is just so common in our society that you could be practicing, what we would typically consider low risk sexual behavior, having sex with only one or two people, in a monogamous relationship, and still be at high risk for HPV," says Dempsey.
The U of M study appears in the current issue of the journal 'Pediatrics.'
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