The HPV Vaccine Is 20 Years Old. Let’s Celebrate! With Glitter.

HPV gets everywhere. But so does a vaccine! (Photo courtesy of Flickr user Courtney Emery.) We have a VACCINE against CANCER. For 20 years now! The first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil, was approved in June, 2006. Since then, the rate of cervical cancer has dropped by 62 percent in the United States. HPV also causes vulvar, vaginal, anal, and penile, tongue, and throat cancers, and the vaccine protects against them as well. Most people don’t know! They don’t know HPV is a huge public health risk for so many kinds of cancer, or that a vaccine can protect them and their kids. Anyway, happy anniversary to one of the biggest public health victories of the 21st century. Just imagine how many more lives could be saved if people weren’t so squeamish about sex. Ess-ee-ecks. HPV is still the most common sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. That’s how you get it, through sex. It causes genital warts as well as cancer. It’s extremely contagious, and it infects many kinds of…