Spring Break
Women's Center offers HPV vaccine
By: Stephanie McMillen
Issue date: 9/13/07 Section: News
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The director of the Women's Clinic at the Beutel Health Center on campus, Martha Dannenbaum, said that most people don't realize they can get HPV by simply making skin to skin contact.
"When a guy tells a girl that he has been tested for everything and that he is clean, he may not be," Dannenbaum said. "There is currently no test for HPV in men."
Genital human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States.
About 20 million people in the U.S. are infected, and about 6.2 million more are infected each year.
There are about 40 types of genital HPV. Some can cause cervical cancer and others can cause various types of cancer in both men and women.
"In many cases, especially for people under 30 years of age, they will show no symptoms and the infection will clear on its own within six months," Dannenbaum said.
The HPV vaccine protects against four major types of HPV, including two types that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancer and two types that cause about 90 percent of genital warts.
"Now, genital warts won't kill you," Dannenbaum said, "but they are unpleasant to have."
Every year in the U.S. about 10,000 women get cervical cancer and 3,700 die from it.
Denise Chapman, a lecturer in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, said some strains of HPV will cause visible warts but usually the strains that cause cervical cancer do not have visible warts.
"If the cancer is caught early, small parts of the cervix can be removed," Chapman said. "If it continues on, more of the cervix will need to be removed, making it difficult or impossible to carry a child."
Director of the Student Health Center Linda Lekawski said, A&M was one of the first of the Big 12 schools to begin offering the vaccine when it came out last year.
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