Reducing deaths is great, but shouldn’t they also mention the reduction in treatment (which is usually surgical or chemo, both of which are massively expensive, traumatic, and life altering in negative ways).
They could do that, but given how low the base rate is, the reduction in number of procedures (and the resulting negative impacts on the women) would be incredibly low. It seems the base rate for cervical cancer deaths under 30 was already near zero.
Just a note: the article focuses on the ladies, but men should absolutely get it as well because it cuts risk for other types of cancers. I was looking for a better link, however this is the only one I found (I had an older one saved, however I can't find it):
yes! Apparently the rate of penile and throat cancer occurs at only half the rate in men as it does as cervical cancer in women, but the harm caused by the male versions of the cancer are worse, so in actual fact it may overall cause more harm in the male population.
My bet is that it has to do with the mechanics of receptive vaginal and oral sex, the penis just reaches deeper and causes more lesions. Compared to insertive vaginal sex and oral vaginal performance, those lesions would be less frequent and on more distal parts of the body.
If the rate is 50%, I'd also expect MSM to be overrepresented there, which would make the difference of risk between heterosexual sex even more imbalanced.
For some reason not really talked about in mainstream medicine for straight men. It makes no sense. Very safe vaccine and you're eligible into your 40's to get it. Everyone sexually active probably has some strains but not all.
As mentioned already several times in the comments, there is also a long tail of people who survive but after a grueling and costly treatment that disrupt their lives.
My oldest daughter almost died from the first Gardasil, so you may not die from cervical cancer, but die from something else. I am not against vaccines; my kids are all fully vaccinated on a spaced-out schedule and not taking more than one shot in at least 2 months, and so am I, but the HPV vaccine was not mandatory, so, given the experience and the similar genetics, we didn't do it for the other two kids. Yeah, there's a risk of cancer, which might be curable 5-10-15 years from now, but the risk of side effects is here now... for some. So, it's not always a win-win, and we've got no interest from health authorities in assessing the risk for my other two kids, so they also seem very risk-averse and want us to assume all the negatives.
Every time HPV comes up, someone says “guys should get the vaccine too” but I’ve never managed to succeed. Even after last time someone mentioned it I tried and I got the absolutely worst result where they recorded me as being given it but then said it wasn’t meant for men my age. Had to get it removed from the record by the One Medical people I saw next.
And when I saw them, they said it wouldn’t be covered under insurance and would be like $1.2k. I intended to just get it on my next visit to India but ended up not traveling.
I don’t get it. Is this like those Internet memes “don’t mess with the postal police” and stuff or is it a real thing? Any guy in their late 30s in the US who managed to get it?
American experience. It's free in Australia for people aged 12-25 and men who have sex with men (increased risks) and nothing like that price for private script.
I paid Planned Parenthood in Florida for the three Gardasil doses out of pocket after the male age limit was raised to 45 circa October 2018. Insurance covered it for my kids with no cost at their pediatrician.
In the UK it's commonly said, and the Guardian is a UK paper.
Though you've noticed a real thing: for some reason during and after the pandemic publications outside of the UK started saying it too and I don't know why.
The estimated number of deaths from cervical cancer in the US in 2026 is 4,200. The death rate is 2.2 per 100,000 people down from 3.1 per 100,000 in 1992.
If we multiply 3.1e-5 by 50 years that's about a 0.15% chance of dying of this cancer. The HPV shots cost $500-1000 for the three shots, so the cost per life saved is about $650K. With the statistical value of a human life being about $12M this is quite cost effective.
I'm assuming the reduction in death continues to later in life after 30, but that's a reasonable assumption, IMO.
“Approximately 0.6 percent of women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2021–2023 data” [1].
Given “reports of serious health issues after HPV vaccination were consistently rare—around 1.8 per 100,000 HPV vaccine doses, or 0.0018%” [2], a woman suffers a 300x higher hazard (assuming we measure a serious vaccine reaction as being equivalent to cancer, which is silly) from going unvaccinated.
> How many people actually die of cervical cancer before age 30?
4,462 young women under the age of 30 died of cervical cancer in 2022 worldwide [3].
Your questions are sort-of answered in the article. 3300 die each year of cervical cancer in the uk. So at 0% it saves 3300 lives per year. However the vaccination is fairly new so they have to wait longer to see if it applies 20-years, 30-years, etc later. I assume it would though.
Out of curiosity, have there been any other advances in medicine that would make it less likely that women would die from cervical cancer before hitting 30? I don't keep up on oncology developments, but I assume that this particular shot is not the only thing that has reduced cervical cancer deaths in women under 30. If they were looking at rates of acquiring cancer, that would be more focused on this intervention.
So 5 deaths across 3 years? Doesn't seem worth a headline, especially since it could literally just be noise in the data.
Also, no need to post snarkily about LMGTFY. TFA should have included the base rate, and the fact that it didn't signals that it's not much of a reduction. It also signals that the journalist who wrote it is more in it for clicks than conveying accurate information.
Absolutely is - this is such a no-brainer of a public health intervention. We're not touching on the cost of treatment (including inability to have future children! very much something a State should be interested in avoiding).
Your answer reveals you are unable to analyse statistical data
There has always been deaths in the 20-24 y.o. slice since data collection started in 1970 and here we have 0 deaths between 2020 and 2024. If you can't work out that it is statistically significant, stop commenting about what is and isn't "noise" and learn statistics. And look at yourself in the mirror about giving lessons about "accurate information" and being "more in it for clicks".
The linked chart shows that there were none in the 20-24 age range during the during the recent few years. Is the entire population vaccinated? If not (the article doesn't claim this), then the fact that no one in that age range died (and only 5 in the entire under-30 cohort) tends to indicate that it was not a very high base rate.
Are there other sources that show data going back to the 1970s? Probably! I didn't go searching for them. I looked at what was linked above and saw there were very few. As I said, the Guardian journalist didn't include a base rate, which surely would have been included if it bolstered the argument.
EDIT: I just scrolled down further and saw that even the chart that shows trends over time (which I hadn't seen before, having stopped scrolling earlier) doesn't support your point. It shows there were roughly .2 deaths per year per 100k. Not having any deaths in 20-24 for 3 years is not a statistically significant difference, I would imagine, than the .2 figure. Also, there are undoubtedly other cancer-related advances that have made it less likely that a young woman would die of any kind of cancer.
And the data regarding under-30 deaths is muddled because the next bucket up is 25-34, and we don't know what it is up to 29.
Lastly, at the bottom there's this disclaimer, which makes it even harder to tell what's going on with small numbers:
> Note: Non-zero counts of 5 or less are suppressed and presented as 5.
If you have another source, please feel free to share. What we've seen so far (nothing in TFA, nothing of import in the commenter's linked data) isn't remotely compelling.
Your source doesn't say what you think it says, as evidenced by your other mistaken comments in this thread. I was referring to other sources (other than the one you posted, which doesn't say what you think it does) because I wanted to know if anything supported your claims.
Please stop with the ad hominem business, which is frowned upon by the HN guidelines (I see you're new here).
Reducing deaths is great, but shouldn’t they also mention the reduction in treatment (which is usually surgical or chemo, both of which are massively expensive, traumatic, and life altering in negative ways).
They could do that, but given how low the base rate is, the reduction in number of procedures (and the resulting negative impacts on the women) would be incredibly low. It seems the base rate for cervical cancer deaths under 30 was already near zero.
>the base rate for cervical cancer deaths under 30 was already near zero.
It has never been zero between 1970 and 2019. It has been completely 0 between 2020 and 2024.
Not according to the age-bucked histogram in the data you linked to below.
> given how low the base rate is, the reduction in number of procedures (and the resulting negative impacts on the women) would be incredibly low
Correct. These data are more a preview of what we can expect to see as the vaccinated cohort (in countries that aren’t pro-disease) advances in age.
Indeed, Australia will be one of the first countries to eliminate cervical cancer (by 2035) due to their HPV vaccination rates.
https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-rebecca-white-mp...
Just a note: the article focuses on the ladies, but men should absolutely get it as well because it cuts risk for other types of cancers. I was looking for a better link, however this is the only one I found (I had an older one saved, however I can't find it):
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/24/health/hpv-men-vaccine-cancer...
yes! Apparently the rate of penile and throat cancer occurs at only half the rate in men as it does as cervical cancer in women, but the harm caused by the male versions of the cancer are worse, so in actual fact it may overall cause more harm in the male population.
My bet is that it has to do with the mechanics of receptive vaginal and oral sex, the penis just reaches deeper and causes more lesions. Compared to insertive vaginal sex and oral vaginal performance, those lesions would be less frequent and on more distal parts of the body.
If the rate is 50%, I'd also expect MSM to be overrepresented there, which would make the difference of risk between heterosexual sex even more imbalanced.
For some reason not really talked about in mainstream medicine for straight men. It makes no sense. Very safe vaccine and you're eligible into your 40's to get it. Everyone sexually active probably has some strains but not all.
the reason is no one realized hpv was connected to much more than cervical cancer until fairly recently.
Yeah, not everyone.
Glad to see it, except it is still a sensationalist headline IMO because HPV deaths, and specifically below 30 years old, is already extremely low.
As mentioned already several times in the comments, there is also a long tail of people who survive but after a grueling and costly treatment that disrupt their lives.
My oldest daughter almost died from the first Gardasil, so you may not die from cervical cancer, but die from something else. I am not against vaccines; my kids are all fully vaccinated on a spaced-out schedule and not taking more than one shot in at least 2 months, and so am I, but the HPV vaccine was not mandatory, so, given the experience and the similar genetics, we didn't do it for the other two kids. Yeah, there's a risk of cancer, which might be curable 5-10-15 years from now, but the risk of side effects is here now... for some. So, it's not always a win-win, and we've got no interest from health authorities in assessing the risk for my other two kids, so they also seem very risk-averse and want us to assume all the negatives.
Every time HPV comes up, someone says “guys should get the vaccine too” but I’ve never managed to succeed. Even after last time someone mentioned it I tried and I got the absolutely worst result where they recorded me as being given it but then said it wasn’t meant for men my age. Had to get it removed from the record by the One Medical people I saw next.
And when I saw them, they said it wouldn’t be covered under insurance and would be like $1.2k. I intended to just get it on my next visit to India but ended up not traveling.
I don’t get it. Is this like those Internet memes “don’t mess with the postal police” and stuff or is it a real thing? Any guy in their late 30s in the US who managed to get it?
American experience. It's free in Australia for people aged 12-25 and men who have sex with men (increased risks) and nothing like that price for private script.
Yes I got Gardasil 9 for free in San Francisco.
I paid Planned Parenthood in Florida for the three Gardasil doses out of pocket after the male age limit was raised to 45 circa October 2018. Insurance covered it for my kids with no cost at their pediatrician.
https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2018posts/fda-approves-hpv-vac...
Why is a this news headline using the slang "jabs"?
In the UK it's commonly said, and the Guardian is a UK paper.
Though you've noticed a real thing: for some reason during and after the pandemic publications outside of the UK started saying it too and I don't know why.
My guess is because it has a negative connotation (the pre-2020 definition of jabbing someone was to hit someone, not inject someone).
From what risk level without them? How many people actually die of cervical cancer before age 30??
I mean, vaccinations and cancer prevention are both great, but this headline is ridiculous.
The estimated number of deaths from cervical cancer in the US in 2026 is 4,200. The death rate is 2.2 per 100,000 people down from 3.1 per 100,000 in 1992.
If we multiply 3.1e-5 by 50 years that's about a 0.15% chance of dying of this cancer. The HPV shots cost $500-1000 for the three shots, so the cost per life saved is about $650K. With the statistical value of a human life being about $12M this is quite cost effective.
I'm assuming the reduction in death continues to later in life after 30, but that's a reasonable assumption, IMO.
Even if you just consider all of those 4000 + survivors would have got treatment for the cancer after getting it which costs far more than a vaccine.
> From what risk level without them?
“Approximately 0.6 percent of women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2021–2023 data” [1].
Given “reports of serious health issues after HPV vaccination were consistently rare—around 1.8 per 100,000 HPV vaccine doses, or 0.0018%” [2], a woman suffers a 300x higher hazard (assuming we measure a serious vaccine reaction as being equivalent to cancer, which is silly) from going unvaccinated.
> How many people actually die of cervical cancer before age 30?
4,462 young women under the age of 30 died of cervical cancer in 2022 worldwide [3].
[1] https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/cervix.html
[2] https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2021...
[3] https://gco.iarc.who.int/today/en/dataviz/pie?mode=populatio... Mortality, cervix uteri, females, 0 to 29
Your questions are sort-of answered in the article. 3300 die each year of cervical cancer in the uk. So at 0% it saves 3300 lives per year. However the vaccination is fairly new so they have to wait longer to see if it applies 20-years, 30-years, etc later. I assume it would though.
Parent's question isn't answered in the article - no figure is given for how many deaths under 30 there are as a baseline.
From the article:
“We estimate that since its introduction [in 2008], HPV vaccination has prevented nearly 200 young women from dying from cervical cancer in England.”
This is an estimate of 200 total of any age total across 18 years. The article doesn't say 3300 die each year, 3300 are diagnosed each year.
The BBC article had that more comparable information: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c621z28z138o
> Between 2020 and 2024, no cervical cancer deaths were recorded in women aged 20 to 24 - the first time that had happened over a five-year period.
> Without vaccination, around 23 deaths would have been expected.
Note the first chart in the link showing the historical trend for the 20-24 cohort since 2000 plumetting from 25 to 0.
Out of curiosity, have there been any other advances in medicine that would make it less likely that women would die from cervical cancer before hitting 30? I don't keep up on oncology developments, but I assume that this particular shot is not the only thing that has reduced cervical cancer deaths in women under 30. If they were looking at rates of acquiring cancer, that would be more focused on this intervention.
I'm not a doctor and certainly not an oncologist.
The CDC mentions that not smoking and wearing condoms also lower the risk.
https://www.cdc.gov/cervical-cancer/prevention/index.html
Anecdotally people smoke less thant they uses to. Don't know what condom usage rates have done in the past quarter century.
> I assume that this particular shot is not the only thing that has reduced cervical cancer deaths in women under 30.
Why would you assume that when presented with a study that tracks with long standing belief in the medical community that the HPV vaccine works?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
>From what risk level without them? How many people actually die of cervical cancer before age 30??
All the data is there:
https://crukcancerintelligence.shinyapps.io/CancerStatsDataH...
It was literally a google "death cervical cancer UK" away.
So 5 deaths across 3 years? Doesn't seem worth a headline, especially since it could literally just be noise in the data.
Also, no need to post snarkily about LMGTFY. TFA should have included the base rate, and the fact that it didn't signals that it's not much of a reduction. It also signals that the journalist who wrote it is more in it for clicks than conveying accurate information.
Absolutely is - this is such a no-brainer of a public health intervention. We're not touching on the cost of treatment (including inability to have future children! very much something a State should be interested in avoiding).
Your answer reveals you are unable to analyse statistical data
There has always been deaths in the 20-24 y.o. slice since data collection started in 1970 and here we have 0 deaths between 2020 and 2024. If you can't work out that it is statistically significant, stop commenting about what is and isn't "noise" and learn statistics. And look at yourself in the mirror about giving lessons about "accurate information" and being "more in it for clicks".
The linked chart shows that there were none in the 20-24 age range during the during the recent few years. Is the entire population vaccinated? If not (the article doesn't claim this), then the fact that no one in that age range died (and only 5 in the entire under-30 cohort) tends to indicate that it was not a very high base rate.
Are there other sources that show data going back to the 1970s? Probably! I didn't go searching for them. I looked at what was linked above and saw there were very few. As I said, the Guardian journalist didn't include a base rate, which surely would have been included if it bolstered the argument.
EDIT: I just scrolled down further and saw that even the chart that shows trends over time (which I hadn't seen before, having stopped scrolling earlier) doesn't support your point. It shows there were roughly .2 deaths per year per 100k. Not having any deaths in 20-24 for 3 years is not a statistically significant difference, I would imagine, than the .2 figure. Also, there are undoubtedly other cancer-related advances that have made it less likely that a young woman would die of any kind of cancer.
And the data regarding under-30 deaths is muddled because the next bucket up is 25-34, and we don't know what it is up to 29.
Lastly, at the bottom there's this disclaimer, which makes it even harder to tell what's going on with small numbers:
> Note: Non-zero counts of 5 or less are suppressed and presented as 5.
If you have another source, please feel free to share. What we've seen so far (nothing in TFA, nothing of import in the commenter's linked data) isn't remotely compelling.
>Are there other sources that show data going back to the 1970s? Probably! I didn't go searching for them.
I just gave the link with data going back to 1970...
You are not a serious person. Please stop being noise.
Your source doesn't say what you think it says, as evidenced by your other mistaken comments in this thread. I was referring to other sources (other than the one you posted, which doesn't say what you think it does) because I wanted to know if anything supported your claims.
Please stop with the ad hominem business, which is frowned upon by the HN guidelines (I see you're new here).
I remember this vaccine being part of political discourse, so I everyone should be extremely skeptical of any news about it.
The only ones making the HPV vaccine "political" are the morons who think it shouldn't be administered because it increases promiscuity.