What if I told you that there was a cancer vaccine that could potentially spare your child not one, but six kinds of cancer? You’d jump at the chance, right?
That already vaccine exists — it’s the shot for human papillomavirus, an extremely common sexually transmitted infection that can cause multiple types of cancers. Each year, HPV causes over 21,000 cases of cancer in women and 16,000 cases of cancer in men.
But despite evidence of the vaccine’s efficacy, many parents continue to eye it with suspicion. The roots of their fears are complex and doctors need to play a bigger role in alleviating them.
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