[NVIC] Condoms Prevent HPV, Cervical Cancer

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E-NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER

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UNITED WAY/COMBINED FEDERAL CAMPAIGN

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" Protecting the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982. "

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BL Fisher Note:

A new study has shown that routine condom use during sex can prevent

young women from being infected with HPV after becoming sexually active. HPV

infection can sometimes lead to cervical cancer if the infection becomes

persistent, rather than being cleared naturally from the body.

Condom use, the old fashioned birth control method, does not subject users

to lab altered viruses or toxic additives like aluminum, which are contained

in Merck's Gardasil vaccine. But condoms are not as profitable for drug

companies as mandating three doses of HPV vaccine at $120 per dose for every

girl born in America, which the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization

Practices is considering doing on June 29.

Projected annual profits for Merck from sales of Gardasil in U.S. and

foreign markets are between $2B and $4B if the CDC recommends all girls use

it.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/22/condoms.hpv.ap/index.html

CNN

Study: Condoms protect well against cancer-causing virus

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- For the first time, scientists have proof that

condoms offer women impressive protection against the virus that causes

cervical cancer.

A three-year study of female college students -- all virgins at the start --

found that women whose partners always wore a condom during sex were 70

percent less likely to become infected with the human papilloma virus, or

HPV, than those whose partners used protection less than 5 percent of the

time.

" That's pretty awesome. There aren't too many times when you can have an

intervention that would offer so much protection, " said Dr. Kloser,

an infectious-disease specialist at University of Medicine and Dentistry of

New Jersey who was not part of the study.

Condoms have been shown convincingly to prevent pregnancy and AIDS. But

conservatives who want to see abstinence taught in schools have long argued

that condoms do not protect well against diseases such as HPV, because men

can spread the virus to women from sores on their genitals outside the area

covered by a condom.

However, the researchers at the University of Washington found that the

chances of HPV being spread that way appear to be small.

Human papilloma virus -- which can cause cervical cancer, genital warts and

vaginal, vulvar, anal and penile cancers -- is the most common sexually

transmitted disease, infecting about 80 percent of young women within five

years of becoming sexually active. An estimated 630 million people worldwide

are infected.

The virus is spread during sex from contact with the sores, or lesions, that

develop around infected cells.

Often, the virus is killed by the immune system, but in some people HPV can

take hold and cause lesions that can turn cancerous years later. Cervical

cancer strikes about 10,520 American women and kills about 3,500 each year.

Worldwide, about 500,000 women develop cervical cancer and nearly 300,000

die from it every year.

In the HPV study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine,

none of the women who reported that their partners always used condoms

developed lesions during the three-year period. Fourteen women whose

partners used condoms less regularly got lesions.

Twelve of the 42 women who said their partners always used condoms became

infected. Winer, a researcher in the university's epidemiology

department, said it could be that the couples did not use the condoms

correctly or had some sexual contact before putting on a condom.

Recent medical advances might someday render the condom debate moot: Earlier

this month, the U.S. government approved the first vaccine against HPV, and

public health officials are urging that girls be routinely vaccinated before

they become sexually active.

The study comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is revising rules

for the claims that manufacturers can make on how well condoms prevent

sexually transmitted diseases.

Packages now must state: " If used properly, latex condoms will help to

reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other

sexually transmitted diseases. " But revisions were ordered by Congress in

2000 amid pressure from conservative groups demanding " medically accurate "

claims as to condoms' effectiveness.

Safe-sex advocates warn that changing the wording would undermine public

confidence in, and use of, condoms.

At the time, there was solid evidence only on how well condoms prevent

pregnancy, HIV and, in men, gonorrhea. Recent research has produced strong

evidence condoms protect well against gonorrhea, chlamydia and herpes in

both men and women, said Dr. Ward Cates Jr., president of the Institute for

Family Health at Family Health International. This study adds HPV to that

list, he said.

" This will help clinicians to counsel their patients about the effectiveness

of condoms to reduce another of the sexually transmitted infections -- if

condoms are used consistently and correctly, " Cates said.

The researchers invited 24,000 female students ages 18 to 22 at the Seattle,

Washington, university to be in the study. Starting in 2001, they followed

82 from before their first vaginal intercourse, testing the women for HPV

with swabs of the cervix and other genital areas every four months. The

women kept online diaries detailing each act of intercourse, including

condom use and whether there was any genital contact without a condom.

Winer said previous HPV studies either showed no protection from condoms or

were inconclusive. This one included only virgins and collected more

details, and the computer diaries helped women be more honest about condom

use than those in studies where people are interviewed about their sexual

behavior, she said.

" This is about as ideal a study as you can get, " said Dr. Tom Fitch, a San

pediatrician and board chairman at the Medical Institute for Sexual

Health, which stresses abstinence and monogamy as the only sure ways to

prevent sexually transmitted infections.

Nevertheless, Fitch noted that some consistent condom users still were

infected with HPV. Fitch and Kloser also suggested that the results in the

real world -- say, among poor, inner-city women -- might be different from

those with college women.

Fitch said several studies have shown that at most, 50 percent of people

reported using a condom every time they had sex.

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