Encouraging Health

From Greenwood ebooks:

Krishnan, Shobha S. The HPV Vaccine Controversy: Sex, Cancer, God, and Politics: A Guide for Parents, Women, Men, and Teenagers. Westport, 2008. Greenwood eBooks.

In The HPV Vaccine Controversy, Shobha Krishnan covers quite a bit of ground. At the very beginning, she reminds the reader that this book is a reference guide for Parents, Doctors and Teenagers. It’s a dense read; one that is well-researched, well-presented and well-covered. The book covers three main areas: What HPV is, who it’s for and what should be done about it.

In the first area, What HPV is, Shobha Krisnan devotes quite some time to discussing what the HPV virus is, what it isn’t, its forms and what parents should be concerned about. The HPV virus, says Shobha, is widely and readily passes from person to person, in its many different forms, via sexual or nonsexual means. It may cause simple warts to cervical and anal cancer, and may come and go on its own or require surgical excision and therapy. Since some strains of HPV may cause cervical cancer, an outline of what cancers they may cause is vastly discussed and may be beyond the reach of the lay reader who is not familiar with medical terminology or issuance.

The second area, who the HPV vaccine is for goes into quite a ‘sell’. What that means, is that an extraordinarily amount of the book is spent trying to persuade the reader (parents) why the vaccine is needed (and before their daughters are sexually active) in order for the vaccine to work properly. Since the main purpose of the book is to prevent cervical cancer via HPV vaccinations, there must be an explanation why parents need to vaccinate their young daughters when the outcome will not be seen for many decades. A point is brought up that boys should be vaccinated, as there is early proof that men infect others with the more serious strains of HPV virus that cause cervical and anal cancer. (So far, in the US, only Gardisil is approved for HPV vaccinations and only for girls and women up to age 26).

The last area, what should be done about the HPV vaccine, is, more or less, a reiteration of the first parts of the book. International, developing and underdeveloped countries are touched upon, as cervical cancer rates are much higher than in developed countries. Doctors and health care workers ‘in the field’ ask that the vaccine cover more than just those HPV strains that lead to cervical and anal cancer and to bring the cost down to a dollar a shot, compared to the three-shot requirement of over $120 per shot.

The book is a good resource and recommended for those parents and caregivers of young girls (and boys) who are concerned about HPV.