Always using a condom during sex can reduce a woman’s risk of acquiring the virus that causes cervical cancer by up to 70%, suggests a new study.
A vaccine against cervical cancer has just been approved in the US, but people will still need to use condoms to protect themselves against the illness, say researchers. This is because the vaccine only protects against some of the strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause cervical cancer. Less than two weeks ago, the US Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of Gardasil, made by pharmaceutical firm Merck, after tests showed it to be “nearly 100% effective” in protecting against certain high-risk strains of HPV. There are more than 100 different strains of HPV, and most appear relatively harmless. Gardasil targets four strains of HPV – types 6, 11, 16 and 18 – but there are other strains that can cause cervical cancer. [...] Until now, the effectiveness of condoms against HPV has been unclear. In fact, some studies have suggested that condoms do not offer protection against the virus. But now the most detailed study of condom use and HPV to date finds that they do markedly reduce the risk.
Proponents of sexual abstinence until marriage and others have recently put the FDA under pressure to add a warning to condom labels about a potential lack of protection against HPV transmission. “We’re hoping the findings of the paper will dissipate this pressure,” says Markus Steiner of Family Health International in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, US, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the study published in New England Journal of Medicine.
[...] At the end of any given eight-month period, women who reported 100% condom use by their partners were 70% less likely to be diagnosed with HPV than those whose partners used condoms less than 5% of the time. And none of the women whose partners always used condoms developed dangerous cervical lesions during the study. Exactly how some women acquired HPV if their partners always used condoms remains unknown. In fact, all of those in this particular group also reported no genital contact without a condom. “There are all kinds of potential explanations that are impossible to pinpoint,” Winer says of this result. She suggests that, for example, HPV may be transmitted through contact with unprotected areas of skin even with perfect condom use, or the women may have misreported genital contact during sex. Winer stresses that even if the vaccine against cervical cancer becomes widely available, condoms may still offer protection against high-risk HPV strains for which there is no proven vaccine protection.
I do wonder what the conservative reaction to the study will be, other than vigorously trying to suppress any mention of its results in governmental sources. After all, one of their stated reasons for opposing the HPV vaccine was that they wanted the risk of the disease out there, that since condoms couldn't prevent passing HPV from one partner to another, sheer terror would prevent virtuous young women from ever having sex, because they'd be able to say, "Sex equals cancer! Cancer equals death! Condoms won't help!" And now that avenue is at least partially closed.
Then again, I don't expect it will make any difference. The sort of people that prefer that their daughters catch one of a few potentially damaging or fatal diseases, rather than be informed of ways to protect themselves, aren't going to let bizarre things like facts stand in their way.
Posted by iain at June 22, 2006 10:22 AM
